Nikki Smith of Encino, California says she wakes up everyday, puts her feet on the floor, and thanks God. “Just living as long as this is a blessing. I just try to do whatever I do as well as I can.” With an attitude of gratitude, this 95-year-old woman knits hundreds and hundreds of scarves for those deployed overseas.

Ms. Smith is a veteran who served in the U.S. Navy in World War II. She was on her lunch hour as a hairdresser in the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles when she passed a poster of Uncle Sam pointing his finger and saying, “I want you!” She went right in and signed up for the Navy, where she served for just under three years as a pharmacist’s mate in San Diego Naval Hospital. Decades later, her son volunteered for the Navy and served in Vietnam. He recently finished touring the country to visit every Vietnam Memorial he could find and plans to write a book about it. Ms. Smith, too, has a story worth telling.

[Image via Midnight Beadery]

Two years ago, at 93, she went with her church group to the local armory to volunteer. She saw a woman knitting in the corner and thought, I can do that. “The woman gave me the measurement and told me it is simple to do. The scarf is 50 inches long and you have to cast on 20 stitches across. So I went to Michael’s before even going home and I bought yarn and I bought needles and got to work.”

About a year later, she read that Operation Gratitude, a California-based charity that sends 150,000+ care packages annually to current and former U.S. Service Members, would be celebrating its 1,000,000th care package. “I got on the Internet and reached out to this organization to say thank you,” she says. She decided then to donate the hundred scarves she had knit since that fateful day at the armory–and to knit hundreds more. Her scarves are now included in the care packages, along with snacks, entertainment, hygiene items, and personal letters of appreciation. “With each scarf I have a little note: Handcrafted with love and gratitude in every stitch by Grandma Nikki who was a World War II Veteran U.S. Navy,” she says.

Story continues

Scarves are a fitting way to say thank you to troops, since the wearing of scarves–by men, anyway–was popularized by aviators in both World Wars. They wore scarves for warmth and to prevent chafing while scanning the sky for enemy planes.

It is also fitting that Operation Gratitude celebrated its 1,000,000th Package Celebration last year on December 7th, the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and Ms. Smith’s birthday. Yes, this woman warrior even has a patriot’s date of birth!

“Nikki Smith is a pistol,” says Carolyn Blashek, founder of Operation Gratitude. Ms. Blashek called her son, a Marine who also shares the December 7th birthday, and Nikki Smith on stage in front of 5,000 people during the 1,000,000th package celebration. “Nikki was up there waving the flag and smearing cake on my son’s face,” Ms. Blashek laughs. “But she is also very sweet. She asked my permission before she did it.”

Smith says she knits scarves in every color and uses one color per scarf. You can find easy patterns for knitting scarves and how to get them to veterans, by clicking here and here.

This Christmas, Ms. Smith had two additional to-dos on her knitting list. “My grandson is having twin girls in March, my first–and second–great grandchildren. So I am knitting two pink crib blankets,” she says. Two pink blankets and two hundred scarves for troops.

"I feel warm all over when I donate the scarves. It is something that I personally can do. As long as I can do it, as long as my hands hold out, I will continue knitting. I have arthritis in my fingers, so it is not easy for me to do, but I do it anyway," Nikki Smith says. "It sure isn’t easy for those who serve our country, especially at the holidays, but that doesn’t stop them."