Irreplaceable family quilt stolen from college student’s car in Seattle

It was not the way Ben Willis wanted his Thanksgiving weekend to transpire.

While visiting his girlfriend in Seattle on break from Gonzaga University, Willis’ car was stolen out of the U District.

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Thankfully, the Federal Way native found the car. However, all that he had been carrying — essentially most of what he had had with him at college — was gone.

One of those items was far more precious than the rest. When he graduated high school, Willis’ grandmother made him a quilt, just as she does for all of her grandchildren upon their graduations.

“My heart just kind of dropped,” Willis told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson. “Everything else I was going through, I was like, ‘Alright, I can buy new stuff, I can buy new clothes, I can buy new shoes.’ But just the fact that that quilt is gone — it was one-of-a-kind, my heart dropped, my stomach churned. It’s just a tough loss, it’s just devastating to lose that one-of-a-kind thing that has meant so much to me since I got it in high school.”

Not only was the quilt special because of all of the hours of labor his grandmother and mother had put in to create it — the quilt was literally a collection of pieces of Willis’ life. A t-shirt quilt, it was entirely made up of scraps of t-shirts he had worn throughout his childhood, like a baseball team uniform from age 6.

“It means a lot to me … Having those gone just hurts,” he said.

My car was stolen last week from near UW; they took everything I had brought back from college. The biggest loss was a quilt my grandma made me after graduating high school 🙁 Please retweet this to get the word out and maybe someone will spot the quilt for me somewhere. Please:( pic.twitter.com/3tA9GjtNIT

— Ben Willis (@BenWillis18) November 27, 2018

Willis’s grandmother lives in Bellingham and continues to be an avid quilter, but all of the t-shirts used in the quilt are gone. When told the news, Willis said that she tried to be brave for him, but was clearly heartbroken.

“You could tell that she didn’t want to act hurt, she didn’t want to be sad, just because she knew how sad and devastated I was, because that’s just what grandmas do, they have strong hearts,” he said. “But just knowing that mine is gone — it sucks for her just as much as for me.”

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The college student asks everyone in the Puget Sound region to keep an eye out for the colorful quilt. He predicts that it could turn up at a thrift store, or may even currently be covering someone who is sleeping on the street.

“If someone has it on the streets, I’m completely happy to go buy them whatever blanket they want, as long as I can get that blanket back,” he said.

At this point, he said, he does not even care if the thief keeps all of the clothes and shoes that were in the car; all he wants is to get his invaluable family memento back.

“Everything else was replaceable in the car; just that quilt is one-of-a-kind, it’s irreplaceable,” Willis said.

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