Phyllis Rowland, 91, crafts warm gifts

for new babies

By BENNETT HALL

Gazette-Times reporter

Phyllis Rowland loves to knit. Colorful hand-knitted afghans drape the chairs in her cozy living room, and hand-knitted cases adorn the throw pillows on the sofa.

She also likes to stay busy. So when she met a woman who was knitting caps for newborns at the local hospital, she said to herself, "Oh, I could do that."

That was 21 years ago, and Rowland has been knitting baby bonnets ever since.

"Do you know, over the years I've made over 400 of these?" she said, plucking a tiny rib-knit cap from a bag on the floor beside her work chair.

The colors vary, but the pattern is always the same.

"I knit two, purl two for eight inches, then I start decreasing for the crown," she said.

"They're adjustable. When the babies are very tiny, you can roll it up and make a cap. And, as they get older, you can roll it down."

Each cap takes her about 12 hours. "I'm not a fast knitter," she said.

Rowland donates her time through the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program. RSVP turns the caps over to Healthy Start, a nonprofit child health program, which passes them out to parents of newborns.

Over the years, Rowland's other tasks for RSVP have included helping with bulk mailing projects for local nonprofits and working at the Corvallis Senior Center. The program, which has more than 800 participants in Linn and Benton counties, matches individuals individuals 55 and over with volunteer opportunities online at www.lbvision.org.

"She has put in 3,470.5 volunteer hours that we know about," said RSVP Director Beth Fox. "Like all the other volunteers, she has put in more hours than we know."

Rowland learned to knit as a little girl in Wales, and she kept it up after she married Roy Rowland in 1946 and followed her G.I. husband to Corvallis, where they made their home.

"I came by boat, five days on the ocean to New York, and five days and five nights on the train to Albany. He met me there," Rowland said. "And I've lived in this house for 63 years."

Her husband died 20 years ago, and her son and granddaughter live in Portland. She's not as vigorous as she once was, but she can still get out for short walks in the neighborhood with the aid of a cane.

"I'm only 91," she said.

A lifelong Episcopalian, she attends services on Sundays at the Church of the Good Samaritan.

She plays bridge twice a week at the Corvallis Senior Center.

And she knits. In addition to the baby bonnets she makes for Healthy Start, she joined a weekly knitting circle at church that makes bigger caps. Last year's production went to area third-graders, but the group hasn't yet decided whose heads to warm this year.

On a table by her living room chair is an unfinished baby bonnet. She picks up her work, and her fingers automatically resume their interrupted task, deftly looping white yarn around busy needles: knit two, purl two; knit two, purl two.

"It's so relaxing, and it keeps my mind concentrated," Rowland said.

And it gives her a sense of accomplishment, of making a contribution.

"I feel I'm here for a purpose," she said. "I can still do something."

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