When Baby Joey Goodyear left Newfoundland and Labrador as an infant, his grandmother started a quilt for him. They wouldn’t meet again for 27 years, but that quilt was still waiting.
On April 1, 1977, in Mount Pearl, Newfoundland, Trudy Goodyear gave birth to a healthy baby boy she named Joey. He wouldn’t stay on the island for long as his adoptive family moved west.
But Trudy and her mother Ida just knew he would return. They just had to be patient.
Meanwhile, Joey’s new parents Bob and Bev renamed him Chris Inglis and gave him a good life alongside his older sister Kim. They moved all over Northern Ontario due to Bob’s mining career.
The one constant was the honesty about Chris’s adoption. Yet, he didn’t get the urge to find out about his roots until his son Cody came into the world in 2007. In March 2010, Chris’s wife Timmi Brady wrote to ask for his birth records, which arrived within a week.
Within four hours, she had searched online and found that she and Trudy Goodyear had a mutual connection on Facebook. From there, she called and prompted a friend request.
That night, a woman with a voice raw with emotion called to talk to her long-lost son.
“She knew why I called since she saw a photo of Chris, who looked like his biological father,” Timmi explained.
Within days, Trudy and her sister drove up from Cambridge, Ontario to meet Chris’s family in Barrie. “We had an instant connection,” Chris said. “We hugged each other for at least five minutes.”
Ida and Trudy Goodyear visit with Chris Inglis (Baby Joey) and his son Cody during the Newfoundland trip when Ida gave Chris his quilt.
After Trudy asked endless questions, she became a regular presence in his life. She also gave information that led to a warm relationship with his birth father.
During one visit, she presented him with a gold watch, engraved with these simple words: To Baby Joey, Love Mom.”
Finding Trudy was just the first step in this reunion story. Her mother also had a surprise in store.
In 2014, Chris, Timmi and Cody drove to Grand Falls-Windsor, Newfoundland, where Trudy had returned due to ill health. There, Chris met two more aunts and his grandmother Ida, 77, who lived in a nursing home.
“She was very happy we had made the connection,” Chris says. “She kept staring at me.”
“I have something of yours,” she told Chris. “This was made for you in hopes that you would come back.”
She pulled out a pristine quilt that she had stored on a closet shelf since 1977. It has 30 hand-painted blocks pertaining to his Newfoundland heritage: puffins, Cape Spear, a moose, bake apples and so much more. In between, its sashing boasts a bold Newfoundland tartan.
After all, Ida had made quilts for ALL her grandchildren and she wasn’t leaving Baby Joey out.
“I loved the quilt and the sentimental reason that she made it,” Chris said. “It’s really special because someone made it and kept it for me to come back. I feel like a Newfoundlander now!”
Sadly, Trudy died of complications related to COPD in 2015 at age 57. “We jammed a lot in those five years,” Chris says.
Ida would only live another two years. But he still has the quilt made with hopes and dreams before he knew the woman who crafted it.
When Chris travelled to Alabama for work for six months, he took it with him as a way to connect with his loving family.
“They always hoped I would turn up and the quilt would be there.” And that’s exactly what happened.
Do you have a heart-warming story about a quilt like this one? Feel free to share it via Lois.Tuffin@CanadianQuilterAdministration.com.
