A local group that brings women together from across the region to socialize and continue the traditional art of rug hooking recently turned 50.
Members of the Huronia Rug Hooking branch, which meets monthly at the Simcoe County Museum in Midhurst, gathered recently to not only celebrate the group's milestone but also to honour president MaryLou Justason, who also happens to be the last of the four founding members.
“A lot of the founding members of our chapters are no longer with us because we are an older group. MaryLou is one of the four that founded it in 1972. Fifty years is quite a coup because not everybody survives for 50 years,” said Suzanne Chaddock, president of the Ontario Hooking Craft Guild, who presented Justason with a certificate on Dec. 17, acknowledging her lifelong commitment to traditional rug hooking.
Justason, who now lives in Wasaga Beach, said when she first moved north of Barrie, she was a beginner rug hooker and was simply looking to find others to do it with.
“I put an ad in the paper asking if anyone wanted to rug hook. A lot of people came to Georgian College, and they brought their Mary Maxim rugs… I had to be very gentle with them and say that they were very lovely, but… this is my kind.
"I had the traditional kind of rug hooking that our mother’s and grandmother’s were doing over 100 years ago,” she said. “They fell in love with my poor, little beginning rug, which I was proud of, but it was certainly nothing spectacular. Then they wanted to learn to hook," she explained.
“Quick as a wink,” Justason said, she found herself with 15 students.
“I hooked all over the place. We went to churches, Georgian College, I had them in my home on Big Bay Point Road, and they paid $20 for 10 lessons,” she said, adding as she taught her students, she had to also teach herself in order to keep up. “I had no history in teaching because I was a nurse, but if you love what you’re talking about, it’s OK.”
Gradually, Justason added, there were enough people interested in the craft that they were able to form an official group and begin to meet regularly
Justason said while she grew up learning how to knit, crochet and embroider, it was after attending a rug hook display at a church in Georgetown, where she was living at the time, that she realized she wanted to try it.
“The most eminent rug hooking teacher happened to live in Georgetown… so that was my teacher. I had 10 classes, and then we moved up here. The only way I could have people to hook with was to teach them, so I did,” she said.
“I don’t hook like I used to, and I don’t teach anymore because a lot of the people that I taught went on to become so good (they) went on to teach, so I didn’t have to as much," said Justason.
Being honoured in this way and seeing the group she helped create purely for her own personal enjoyment still going five decades later is a true privilege.
“The actual rug hooking is important, but it’s the women, mostly women, because there is occasionally a man, and the socialization. If I was crippled and I couldn’t hook anymore, I would still get somebody to bring me here so that I could meet with all my friends.”
