To a weaver, this is may be an old term or axiom, but to others the expression probably needs some explanation. When a weaver’s work is finished after having thrown the shuttle back and forth through the sheds, pulling beater to bang the threads together after every shot, all to weave a wonder such as has been around for centuries, cloth is finally "cut free of the loom". The ends of the warp are tied and, there it is, a finished piece of cloth.

Life is somewhat like a loom. We[ft] are shuttled back and forth between several courses of warp -- "threads of circumstances" that are switched first one way and then another as each shed opens. Someone pulls the beam that forces us between those warp threads and this process continues until we die and are "cut free of the loom".

My maternal granddad is a perfect example of this analogy. He was born in Missouri during the time his father taught school there. They returned to Ohio to settle in the area of Zanesville, Ohio. Years later, when Harry Edmund Keadle, my granddad, married Jessica White, of Corning, Ohio, who knows the thrill of that young couple as they awaited the birth of their second child. But the beater that was pulled hard weaving the weft of their lives did not turn out the way they dreamed. Leroy, their first child, died in January, 1904 at about four months. Alice Marie Keadle, my mother, was their second child but granddad’s wife died a few days after my mother came into this world. Jessica was "cut free of the loom" of life leaving Harry to weave a life for a baby daughter. Fortunately his mother was available and my mother, Alice Marie, was raised by her grandparents.

But the banging of that weaver’s beater was not finished with Harry’s life. At the age of 42 he was struck down by what they termed in those days "a sun stroke" that eventually took his eyesight. He had remarried after his first wife died at childbirth. At the news that her robust husband and provider was going blind, the woman who once vowed "til death do us part" decided she "did not want to live with a blind man." She cut herself from Harry’s life. Being squeezed between the strands of warp in the weaver’s loom is often not a comfortable time.

What now? First wife gone. Daughter to raise. Second marriage which produced two more daughters. Now, the joyful plans for "the rest of your life" are nothing but shattered dreams—or a rug torn from a loom, not cut free as it should have been..

My grandfather decided to learn how to weave – his mother had a loom and apparently wove for years to provide for her family needs. She was either the firm example of tough love or strangely selfish because she would not let him use her loom! The genre of my granddad produced men who did not take no easily. As strange, and nearly impossible as it seems to even me, I was told that he "felt around" that great old loom of his mothers calculating measurements in his head and "built his own loom". I have an old workbench that could well have been used in constructing his first loom, starting his career as a weaver.

As my granddad’s abilities grew through experience he became very popular as the one who could make rag rugs like no other. He even worked for the [Ohio] State Blind Commission and wove rugs patterned to their specifications. Those were not readily available to the public but were all shipped to the State [for later sales].

Since Granddad Keadle "could do anything" why not have him weave a 9 x 12 rug for their house? My mother and father began "sewing rags together" for Granddad Keadle and almost became obsessed with their special project. So they would sew rag pieces together, wind them into balls until we had enough for the rug. Naturally, you cannot weave a 9 foot wide rug on a modest sized loom, which normally was used to make strip rugs probably a maximum of 36 inches; nine feet would require three strips sewn together and twelve feet was a long runner. In itself, this last task of sewing those long strips together was not a small job.

I do recall one instance when Granddad Keadle chided them for making the balls too big—they were just too hard to handle; so they made smaller balls. Of course it wasn’t a rug until it was woven using those sewn rag strips shuttled back and forth weaving one row at a time—all on hand-powered looms, of course.

I remember it clearly that day the task was completed and we had that huge [to the mind of a small boy] 9 x 12 rag rug to lay in our house. I can’t be exactly sure where we first used that rug but it seems in my memory we used it in more than one house. My dad must have really wanted something unique to have started such a project. Long after we first used that rug it was passed on down to my wife and me and we were privileged to use it in one of our first houses.

Years later, after granddad’s own father was "cut free of the loom" leaving him and his sister to care for the Homestead – something had to be done. Sell the place? Move? What now? Well, my granddad’s loom room had five looms and now he had to reduce the number of looms when he found another place. He was getting on in years now. So, he moved into a small cottage in Putnam, across the river from the main city of Zanesville, Ohio, and started up his weaving again, but this time with just two looms. What a change it must have been for him, being cut free of the homestead, but this time to live by himself. Granddad Keadle had just a one room cottage, with a bath; and he even heated with a coal stove that he had to keep going during cold winter months. As I’ve said before, my Granddad Keadle was not an easy man to discourage. In fact he was a happy, well-informed man keeping himself up to date with news from his radio.

I was probably the typical precocious "little boy" and granddad was always telling me I could weave something some day. Well, my time came and Granddad Keadle "set up" his unique Deen loom so it could weave a tubular weave. On the drawing board of his mind he sketched out the plans to weave a pair of pants for me.

Technically, each shuttle would weave "one side" of a leg. Each shuttle only goes halfway across the warp. One shot of each shuttle for the top side half way across, change the shed, and the shuttle goes back again for the bottom layer. When the legs were finished, then only one shuttle was needed to weave one shed all the way across the top layer of the tube that would be the top of the pants. Remember, all this technique was "sketched out in the mind" of my blind granddad. He had it all figured out as to the length of the two tubes [for the legs] and just when to convert the weaving process to a single tube for the upper part of the pants. In all honesty the practicality of these pants was sacrificed for the novelty of making such a garment; one unique example was the absence of a "fly" closure for a male garment so the upper portion was once again adapted in the weaving process to leave an unfinished edge of the "tube" to close with a fastener of sorts. Another term would be to call this a seamless garment.

As the weaver on most of the straight weaving portions, I know certain details were confusing to me but the master weaver was close by. Believe me, I was one proud 10 years old grandson. I still am, for that matter, because even though it has been over sixty years since those trousers were "cut free of the loom" I still have them, with a note explaining how they came to be made!

My granddad Keadle was finally "cut free of the loom" of life at 79. Nineteen years after I wove those pants I was asked to "preach my granddad’s funeral". I have not woven a thing since then, but my life has been continuously pressed between the warp strands of life. Until the Weaver of Life decides it is time to "cut me free of the loom" I will content myself with throwing the shuttle back and forth weaving this life of mine that God started before I was a gleam in my father’s eyes.

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Credit and appreciation to Dee Burnlees, Ontario, Canada, for her expert assistance with technical terminology in writing this story. Originally printed and published for distribution in the American Amateur Press Association monthly membership bundle in the year 2002. William B. Venrick, Author, Lancaster, Ohio. (Entered in the category of HISTORY on the The Wordwright website 03-12-06)