Holt woman, 94, crochets to keep children warm

HOLT – Ruth Coan believes God is keeping her on Earth to keep children warm.

The 94-year-old Holt woman crochets hats and sweaters. For 15 years, she's been donating them by the bagful to Our Savior Lutheran Food Bank in Lansing, where her daughter, Linda Keep, works as a volunteer.

"This really keeps her going," Keep said. "It's real important to her and she really loves doing it."

Asked how long she's been crocheting, Coan laughed and said, "A hundred years."

Actually, that's only a few decades off. She learned in her 20s from her mother-in-law.

"I enjoy it, and I thank God every day that I had a mother-in-law that taught me how to do this," Coan said.

Her output is prodigious. A couple of bags of hats or sweaters arrive at the food bank each week.

"I've never seen anything like it," said Sharon Miller, director of the food bank. "It's phenomenal.

"She's had to have done thousands of these things."

Coan makes up the patterns as she goes along, "which takes brainpower, too," Keep said.

"She loves it and she's very with it. You know what I mean? I didn't know at 94 if she would be."

"Oh yes, I'm with it," Coan said, looking up from her work on a gray stocking cap.

Coan said she taught crocheting to her older sister, Marion Mayer of Houghton Lake. Mayer will be 99 in May, the same month Coan turns 95.

Keep buys yarn for her mother, and that gets expensive. Forty-five dollars' worth lasts about a week, she said.

"I like donated yarn sometimes, too, because it costs me a fortune to do this," her mother said.

In the fall, as children start school, food bank visitors start asking for Coan's hats and sweaters, Miller said.

Keep takes photos of the children. The images of them in the donated items delight her mother, she said.

"I hear little stories and it makes my day," Coan said.

That's what makes her happiest: knowing that she's keeping kids warm.

"I like children," she said.

To help

People wishing to donate yarn can do so from 12:30 p.m. to 2:45 p.m. Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays at the Our Savior Lutheran Food Bank, 1515 W Holmes Road, Lansing. The phone number is 882-7750.