This Week: DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE READ ALONG ON PAGE 19
Your nonprofit
Celebrating history and friendship
T
community newspaper
Volume 18, Number 21 | July 2-8, 2026
JAMES STEINDLER Editor-in-Chief
o commemorate the United States’ 250th, Colorado’s 150th and the Town of Basalt’s 125th anniversaries, the Basalt Regional Heritage Society recently placed a display at the Basalt Regional Library, featuring a quilt made 50 years ago (1975-1976) during the bicentennial, with each block stitched and embroidered by members of the Basalt Country Homemakers Club, established as an extension club in 1966. The intention behind the quilt was for members to create blocks for one another, whose names are included on the respective blocks. The Homemakers Club “was a group of ranch ladies, learning new homemaking skills with local service projects as their goal,” Basalt Regional Heritage Society President Janice Duroux told The Sopris Sun. Duroux was born in Glenwood Springs and has lived most of her life in Basalt. She inherited the quilt from her mother, Vivian Diemoz, who moved to the Valley in 1945 and was a member of the Homemakers Club. The white sections of the quilt with the Homemakers Club members’ designs were pieced together with white and blue blocks, and hand-quilted by Diemoz’s friend, “Mrs. Thomas” of Iowa, according to Duroux. “We are still working on the embroidered friendship blocks, as nearly all of the members have expressed a desire to make a Friendship Quilt,” Homemakers Club member Joyce Wieben wrote in a 1976 report. The display will be installed at the library on July 1 and remain in place through July 30.
Janice Duroux holds the quilt she inherited from her mother that was created by the Basalt Country Homemakers Club in 1976. Duroux emphasized the importance of history, documenting stories and maintaining an interest in those who came before us. Photo by Bob Rugile (Top left) Lola Willey’s block consisted of the Liberty Bell, acknowledging the bicentennial at the time. Photo by Bob Rugile (Bottom left) Homemakers Club members Nancy Maurin (front left) with her daughter, Jannelle, sit across from (left to right) Jerry McClaren, Amy Davis, Almeda Duroux (Janice’s mother-in-law), Marie Maurin and Louise Child. Courtesy photo