Annette John-Hall: Her constant drive to hook folks together

I'm not saying Delorise Easley-Williams' gift of crocheted helmet liners for our troops isn't a kind and generous act worthy of praise.

Because it is. After all, soldiers who often toil in sub-zero temperatures in Iraq, Afghanistan, South Korea, and Kosovo desperately need Delorise's worsted wool ski masks to keep their faces warm and their helmets secure.

All I'm saying is, if you know Delorise - fondly known as Dee to family and friends - you'd know that she can't help giving of herself.

It comes as naturally to her as the mile-a-minute stitch she flawlessly crochets at, well, a mile a minute.

Delorise is one of those neighborhood people I call sustainers. Their names seldom make headlines; their good deeds may not get acknowledged. But if they weren't around, their community would fall apart like a row of dropped stitches.

And now, with their latest project, Delorise and her crocheting pals have extended their community reach to our troops 6,000 miles away through a labor of love.

Retiree

doesn't even begin to describe Delorise, though the 68-year-old retired from her job as a conference-room coordinator at Independence Blue Cross six years ago.

Her unlined face breaks out in a smile as she opens the door of her warm North Philly twin. She had rushed home after presenting a black-history program to one of her many senior groups.

"I'm not one to sit at home," she says.

I'll say. You may find her singing with her choral group, the Classic Tones. Or line dancing at Temptations in Germantown. She even took up tap at 40 and earned a bachelor's degree at 57.

"She touches so many people's lives from within," says Venus Jackson, 46, her daughter. Venus says Delorise was the activity mom who corralled the kids into everything - tap and ballet, crocheting (of course), even Christmas caroling. Not just her own daughters, but the entire neighborhood's, too.

"I just liked the idea of singing together," Delorise says. "Now the kids probably don't even know the songs."

But the thing that gives Delorise the most joy is needlework, especially crocheting.

"When we look at TV, she don't even look up," says Governor Williams, Delorise's husband. "She crochets in the dark."

"When I drop a stitch, I don't have to see it," Delorise says. "I can feel it."

Delorise learned to crochet from her mother when she was a child. "My mother was quite the crafter," Delorise says. "But the one thing she failed to teach me was how to read a pattern."

At Blue Cross, she learned. "I thought, 'Look out, world! I'm dangerous now!'"

Delorise graduated from scarves and hats to hot-pants sets ('70s), leg warmers ('80s) and now, fingerless gloves (for touch devices).

Her basement is a virtual crochet emporium. Sixty-eight red, black, and white scarves lay ready to be boxed up and sent to her granddaughter's drill team in Houston.

Delorise has crocheted complete layettes for every newborn grandchild. She has hooked stunning, professional-looking blankets for every member of the family, made from scraps of leftover yarn. She started crochet groups at church and at work.

She named the Blue Cross group the Crochet Hookers.

A couple of days a week, Delorise volunteers at a senior day-care group in Germantown, where she uses crocheting as therapy.

"They all have arthritis, so I teach them how to knit and crochet on a loom," she says. "We sit and talk and help them do it. Just to be able to use their fingers. . . . "

From the caps she makes for kids with cancer to the lap blankets she crochets for folks in wheelchairs, Delores, quite literally, hooks folks up.

"I take my yarn wherever I go," she says.

Which is everywhere.

"I can't keep up with her," Governor says, shaking his head. "She stays busy."

"It's a good busy, though," her daughter says. "It's a good busy."