* [dramatic orchestral music] *
- The following program
is a PBS Wisconsin original production.
[studio garage door whirring]
* [soft piano music]
- Mary Mulari: I don't think that Nancy,
at age two or three,
stood in front of a mirror
with something pretending to be a microphone.
I don't believe she envisioned herself
that way at all.
But it developed that way
and very successfully developed that way.
- Nancy: I'm Nancy Zieman, and welcome to Sewing With Nancy .
- Eileen Roche: People would not ever expect her
to be the television personality for 35 years that she was.
- Ben White: She always saw herself as a teacher,
and public television was that avenue
to be the classroom in your own home.
- Nancy: Obviously, I'm not symmetrical.
- Tom Zieman: She never let the paralysis in her face
define who she was.
- Kathy Gittus: That was the least of who she was.
What she really was, was a great educator,
had a passion for sewing,
and was able to relate that to people.
What she really was was just who you saw on TV.
- Nancy: You just need to practice.
Have fun and be an artist.
- Laurie Gorman: She was trying to encourage people.
She was trying to give them confidence.
- Eileen Roche: You could learn an awful lot from Nancy Zieman
about many things.
- Marjorie Russell: She was a teacher.
- Nancy: You did it all with your sewing machine.
- Marjorie Russell: And she showed us how it could be done.
- Nancy: That's what's coming up next
on Sewing With Nancy .
* [soft piano music]
- Funding for Nancy Zieman: Extraordinary Grace
is provided by
John W. and Lenore L. Landry Endowment Fund,
Eleanor and Thomas Wildrick Family
Stanley J. Cottrill Fund,
Diane Dempsey,
Elizabeth Olson,
Ruth Ann Potts,
Focus Fund for Wisconsin Programming,
and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.
[cassette player clicking]
[cassette player rolling]
- Nancy: I was more determined to make something of myself,
to show people that I could.
Not because I was a woman,
but because I was a woman who
had physical limitations.
I wanted to prove that I was beyond that.
[cassette recorder clicks off]
* [bright, upbeat music]
- Russell: There's a creativity in each one of us
that we need to foster.
And for many women, it came out in sewing.
The sewing world has changed tremendously
in the last 40 years.
- Deanna Springer: The sewing industry
has really changed
from a necessity in the '50s and '60s of garment sewing
into more of a hobby and an art form.
[sewing machine stitching]
- Russell: It's been just an interest in expressing ourselves
through the creativity of our hands.
[scissors snipping]
- Nancy: I have to take it out.
- Deanna Springer: Nancy Zieman started
the Sewing With Nancy TV show in 1982.
- Nancy: Welcome to another program of Sewing With Nancy ,
Today...
- Kathy Gittus: There was nothing like this on TV.
It was a brand-new thing, you know.
Something that nobody had ever tried to do before.
- Marjorie Russell: Entire channels are devoted to
do-it-yourself projects now.
Nancy was a forerunner for that.
- Nancy: When working with thread, choose one shade darker
than the fashion fabric.
That's right, one shade darker.
- Eileen Roche: I looked at Sewing With Nancy
as Julia Child was for cooking.
I mean, she really ignited sewing
across the nation.
[sewing machine chugging]
- Viewer: I loved Sewing With Nancy .
Nancy inspired me to do more.
- Viewer: She's always had the ability to make you think
you could do it too.
- Viewer: All you have to do is sit down and watch her,
and you learn how to sew.
- Nancy: Today, we have an exciting program.
It's time to discover the joy of sewing and quilting.
That's what's next on Sewing With Nancy .
[sewing machine stitching]
- Nancy: We start the A-to-Z sewing process
by working with one of the simplest of all techniques.
- Ben White: Sewing With Nancy was a how-to
educational sewing show
that aired on public television
from coast to coast, border to border.
By the time it was done,
we finished with over 900 episodes.
- Nancy: And you pin the section together, that 7-inch section.
- Laurie Gorman: Sewing With Nancy was a project-based show.
Nancy would take a project,
show you what it would become in the end,
and then take you step-by-step
through the process of creating that.
- Nancy: And then, just line these two up, five inches down.
- Ben White: The show was very simplistic.
We didn't use flashy graphics.
We didn't use all these effects.
- Eileen Roche: It wasn't sexy.
You know, it didn't have to have lots of glitz and shine.
It let her
really teach methodically
and explain to the viewers how to do it.
- Laurie Gorman: She gave you the confidence
to feel like,
"Well, if Nancy can do that, I can do that too."
- Nancy: It isn't difficult.
We'll take a logical, simplified approach.
A little practice, so it's kind of fun to do.
- Laurie Gorman: I think the reason she was so popular
for so many years was because
she was like a familiar friend.
- Ted Zieman: My mom, she didn't try to be somebody different.
She is who she was on TV.
- Marjorie Russell: She was a friendly, welcoming person,
like the girl next door.
- Tom Zieman: People saw her
as a really down to earth, realistic person
that they enjoyed, quite literally,
inviting into their homes.
They were able to more closely relate to my mom
because she wasn't this picturesque,
perfect figure on TV telling you how to make something.
- Rich Zieman: People enjoyed watching it.
She didn't try to be flamboyant.
She didn't try to be
anybody other than who she was.
- Nancy: You know that the inside
is equally as important as what's on the outside.
One of the main foundations we have...
- Barbara Luedtke Eckstein: Well, she was
really, really pretty little girl.
She had pretty hair
and those beautiful big eyes.
* [poignant instrumental]
And the Bell's palsy struck
when Nancy was only 14 months.
One morning, woke up,
she woke up, and there it was.
* [somber piano music]
And that was hard.
She had to carry on always, you know.
Ah...
People would say, even in front of her,
"Oh, isn't that too bad," you know.
That... hurt.
[cassette tape rolling]
- Nancy: The question that you most want to ask me
has nothing to do with sewing or quilting.
It has to do about my face.
What you first see is not really what you get,
or your first impression is not
really who I am.
[cassette recorder clicks off]
- Marjorie Russell: Of course, Bell's palsy
was a big concern of Nancy's
because she didn't see herself as television material.
She saw herself as having a crooked face
that people might look at and see first
before they saw who she was.
- Gina Crispell: To think that she ended up doing a TV show
with a paralysis of her face
is really ironic.
But I also think that that's why
people gravitated to her.
I think it just made her more human.
- Kathy Gittus: And there were, obviously, lots of trials
that she had to go through.
But it didn't make her bitter.
It just made her stronger.
- Marjorie Russell: Nancy developed grit that was beyond
what most people ever see.
- Kathy Gittus: It made her say,
"You know, I think I can do about anything."
And... she did.
She did!
[studio audience applauding]
* [gentle guitar music]
[tape recorder playing] - Nancy: Bell's palsy,
probably is
the most significant shaper in my life.
There were times in my life that my face just...
I get humbled easily by seeing a picture
or seeing that look that people give me and...
[inhales sharply] um, it's...
I wish I didn't have this.
But in all things, give thanks.
Not for all things, but in all things.
[birds chirping]
- Gina Crispell: Nancy grew up on a dairy farm
in Wisconsin,
handed down generation to generation.
- Marjorie Russell: There were three families
that lived off the Luedtke farm:
Nancy's family, Nancy's grandfather,
and Nancy's uncle's family.
- Gina Crispell: She was my sister, first and foremost.
* [uplifting instrumental]
Crispell: Nancy was the oldest.
I have a brother, John, and a brother, Dean.
And then, 18 years after Nancy, I came along.
Even with the age difference, family was everything.
That's what you are on a farm.
[birds chirping]
- Marjorie Russell: Nancy grew up
in that rural environment
where everything revolved around farming.
And after farming, everything revolved around church.
- Gina Crispell: We all went to a tiny little church
in the country.
Absolutely quintessential country church,
which you would imagine.
Small, little, white, with a steeple
in the middle of nowhere.
- Barbara Luedtke Eckstein: Going to Sunday school,
going to church, that was every Sunday.
That was just part of life.
[cassette playing] - Nancy: In my childhood,
your family and your church was it .
It is my foundation.
But school was...
Oh, boy.
[Nancy exhales]
* [soft piano music]
- Marjorie Russell: In addition to Bell's palsy,
when Nancy was in middle school,
she developed problems with her knees.
And she had multiple surgeries on her knees.
And it was just one thing after another
in middle school and high school, both.
She was struggling physically,
and she was struggling emotionally as well.
- Luedtke Eckstein: She would walk the hallways with her,
you know, her books like this and her head down.
So it was,
it was tough.
- Gina Crispell: My parents hurt for her.
I mean, when you have a child with a disability,
your heart breaks for them,
especially when it's physical,
and you're getting teased about it.
But there wasn't...
there wasn't a pity party for her at all.
It was just, get her involved in things that she enjoyed so...
And she did.
- Marjorie Russell: She kept on going
and I think 4-H was the catalyst
that helped her keep on going.
[cassette playing] - Nancy: Winchester 4-H Club, it was huge!
It was huge to me.
My mother was one of the 4-H leaders.
I owe, you know, a tremendous amount to her.
To my mother's credit, she pushed me,
in a nurturing way, in a loving way.
1963, girls took sewing and cooking and home furnishings,
and you learned so much.
- Marjorie Russell: In Nancy's case,
she learned how to take a sewing project
step-by-step
and to present it to a group of people.
Nancy's first demonstration in 4-H was
how to sew on a waistband.
And with Barbara's help,
she prepared her step-by-step instructions.
And when she was done with that demonstration,
she came away from that table
knowing that she had found something for herself.
- Barbara Luedtke Eckstein: And then, she knew.
She said, "I can do this," you know.
She could just... teach.
- Marjorie Russell: That was the day that she discovered
where the direction her life would take.
She didn't at that point envision a television show,
but she was doing the projects and the demonstrations
that eventually led to Sewing With Nancy .
- Rich Zieman: Nancy went to Stout University
and majored in clothing and textiles
and journalism.
- Kathy Gittus: When she went to college,
I think she made the decision at that point,
that, "I'm gonna do something special."
"I don't know what it is,
but I'm gonna do something special."
- Laurie Gorman: So, she moved to a suburb of Chicago
and started to work.
* [piano melody]
When Nancy started working for Minnesota Fabrics,
she was hired as a home economist
to help demonstrate to people how to create garments.
- Marjorie Russell: She made the samples,
she made the actual garments,
and then she presented.
When she was done holding a class,
then she would take it all down
and do another one the next day.
So, she worked hard in that store.
And the manager of that store's name was Rich Zieman.
- Rich Zieman: She was a person you just liked,
right from the beginning.
Nancy was intelligent,
spoke kindly.
She really was phenomenal.
- Marjorie Russell: Nancy's life was obviously changing
and changing rapidly.
- Rich Zieman: We just kept moving forward,
piece by piece.
And it kept coming together.
- Marjorie Russell: After Rich and Nancy married,
Rich accepted a managerial job
with a department store in Virginia, Minnesota.
* [energetic instrumental]
During that time,
Nancy traveled extensively doing freelance seminars.
- Kathy Gittus: And she would demonstrate sewing techniques.
And she had some devices
or notions that she was using at the time.
And people would ask her, "Where'd you get that?"
- Mary Mulari: Nancy realized
that people wanted to have
the tools and materials
to do the work that she was showing.
- Rich Zieman: And then, being the entrepreneurial spirit
that she is,
she said, "Gosh, maybe we start a mail-order business."
That's when Nancy's Notions was created.
- Mary Mulari: Nancy started her business
at her kitchen table,
with a very simple order sheet.
- Kathy Gittus: So then, she started
with this 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper
with these ten notions and then handed them out,
and people started sending in orders.
- Eileen Roche: She always found the hole.
What was missing for the consumer?
And that is what really made her successful.
And it worked.
- Mary Mulari: She started her business in Virginia, Minnesota
on her kitchen table,
and then moved it to her kitchen table
in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin.
- Rich Zieman: Which is my hometown,
which my mom was very happy about that.
[laughs happily]
- Marjorie Russell: In the course of doing her seminars,
Nancy came in contact
with a man who owned a sewing machine store.
But he produced instructional videos
for sewing machines.
And after meeting Nancy,
he saw the possibilities of doing
a TV program
that was broader than just instructional videos.
It showed people how to actually do sewing projects.
*
[one kHz TV test tone]
[TV countdown beeps]
And Sewing With Nancy was born.
- Hi, I'm Nancy Zieman.
Welcome to another program of Sewing With Nancy .
Today, we start our third...
- Deanna Springer: Her mission in life was teaching sewing,
and another tool that came along was television.
- Nancy: Today we're going to start a new four-part series
"Contemporary Tailoring."
[tape recorder playing] - Nancy: We taped 11 shows of Sewing With Nancy
in my house.
The first show took 13 hours.
Our ceilings were low,
and the lights-- I got sunburn.
Early 1982,
cable television was just in its infancy.
Goodness!
I mean, where this is airing, I don't know.
But television
was just an extension of teaching a seminar.
And here you can see
the grain of the roll line.
It follows...
- Eileen Roche: Nancy was definitely not born a TV star.
Nancy was born an educator.
And she fell in love with sewing
and those two things blended together beautifully.
And it just so happened that her classroom
was on television.
- Deanna Springer: Nancy loved to sew,
and she loved sharing
the love of sewing through television.
- Nancy: We'll start by tailoring the lining,
using, of course, the contemporary techniques.
- Rich Zieman: Well, it was an exciting time.
We had a business growing,
and now we were gonna have a child.
In November of 1983, our son Ted was born.
And then in December of '83,
the producer called Nancy.
[rotary phone 'brrring']
[tape recorder playing] - Nancy: It was a Sunday afternoon and I was feeding Ted
and the phone rang.
['brrring', picks up phone]
And he said, "Nancy, this isn't working."
Sewing With Nancy wasn't profitable for him.
So, I thought, "Well, that was short-lived."
[phone clunks into receiver cradle]
[TV static]
Welcome to another program of Sewing With Nancy.
And a couple of nights later,
I sat up in bed,
in a sweat.
And I thought,
"If you don't do this television program now,
you'll never have another opportunity."
[TV static]
- Barbara Luedtke Eckstein: I often wonder,
I often wonder
if she'd become this successful
if she had been just another pretty girl
with a perfect smile.
But, no,
she had to succeed.
* [serious piano music]
- Russell: When Nancy sat up in the middle of the night
and decided that she was going to do
Sewing With Nancy herself,
what she was taking on was
the production
at her own expense.
Plus, cable television was not free.
She had to pay for airtime.
And it was foreign territory to her.
So it was a great leap of faith to do that.
- Nancy: Welcome to Sewing With Nancy .
Today we have an exciting program.
- Marjorie Russell: She also managed to work it out
so she could be on Saturday mornings.
She wanted a Saturday morning
when there was a little bit more time
for working women
to sit down and watch her program.
- Nancy: It may take a little time, but it's well worth it because you're going to...
- Marjorie Russell: And viewership increased.
Nancy had an instinct for what she was doing,
whether she had the knowledge or not.
She had an instinct for it.
*
[TV button clicks]
* [PBS ID tune by Paul Alan Levi] *
* [synthesizer trills high notes that rapidly descend octave] *
* [warm notes synchronize into a chord] *
[cassette player rolling]
- Nancy: In 1985,
I received a call from
Nebraska Public Television.
* [hopeful instrumental]
How can we get Sewing With Nancy
on Nebraska Public Television?
I was thinking, "It's time to advance.
Time to improve."
My goal?
Having the seal of approval of public television.
- Ben White: Her show, to her, was education.
It was 'how-to.'
It was so important to her
not only what the finished project was,
but how they got there with the process.
She always saw herself as a teacher
and public television was that avenue
to be the classroom in your own home.
- Nancy: And let it tie off, about an inch or so.
- Marjorie Russell: She had to produce a pilot
that was to public television specs.
And that gave them the opportunity
to go on to
not just Nebraska Public Television,
but public television stations all over the United States.
Initially, almost 30%
were interested in carrying Nancy's program.
- Rich Zieman: It had been her dream
to be on public television, so now it was gonna happen.
- Nancy: I hope you've enjoyed this series
on "Successful Sewing Basics."
It was a pleasure to present for you.
Bye for now.
* Nancy's Notions
* Oh, oh, oh, what a great idea *
- Tom Zieman: When Nancy's Notions was probably at
its most active with my parents,
everybody that worked there
was like extended family.
- Nancy: Recycle these boxes...
[group laughing]
- Tom Zieman: I think it's fundamental
to how my mom
thought a business should be run.
* [upbeat piano music]
- Rich Zieman: My parents, they were
our first two employees.
I can't say they were our first two paid employees .
[laughter]
[cutlery rattling]
It was just, it was fun.
- Russell: Nancy's Notions started in her little apartment.
Then, in her new home, took over the basement.
And when the basement became too small,
her father-in-law offered
his former chicken house
and they converted that into
the warehouse for Nancy's Notions.
- Rich Zieman: In 1984, '85,
everything was really, really booming.
We bought about a 6,000-square foot building.
We moved in mid-1985.
And we were wondering,
"Gosh, what we're gonna do with all this space?"
And about two years later, we had outgrown that.
[laughs heartily]
So, we constructed a 14,000-square foot warehouse.
- Kathy Gittus: We're sending out more catalogs.
We're sending out more notions.
It's like we couldn't do anything wrong.
You know, we... [chuckles]
We'd put products in, they would sell.
It was like,
we put more products in, they'd sell.
And it was amazing.
It was just strictly amazing.
[Nancy howls with laughter]
- Rich Zieman: Nancy and I,
we really love this community
because of the people who live here.
[all laughing and clapping]
- Kathy Gittus: Nancy's Notions wasn't just, you know,
Nancy Zieman, President, and then everybody else.
It was a family organization from the very beginning.
- Deanna Springer: We were a family.
We're a family.
Some of the best friends I have now
are people that I met working at Nancy's Notions.
- Kathy Gittus: When Nancy first started out in her business,
it was literally on their kitchen table.
[Nancy's Notions team cheering and applauding]
I was so proud of her.
[cheering]
I was so proud of the fact
that she had done this.
[cheers and applause]
Nancy's Notions was
a kitchen table story that comes true.
[applause]
* [soft piano music]
[tape recorder playing] - Nancy: I'm very thankful
that if I had to have Bell's palsy,
I had it from square one.
But I struggled with that.
I was a year and a half old,
and my doctor said,
"Well, you have Bell's palsy,
and it'll get better by the time she's 13."
But...
not so much.
* [contemplative music]
- So, having Bell's palsy
was something that was part of Nancy's life.
- Marjorie Russell: Frequently, she had to remind herself
that she was not about her face.
- Director: Stand by.
Five, four, three...
- With her facial paralysis, she felt
she doesn't have a face for TV.
- Laurie Gorman: She had moments of self-doubt
when she had to step in front of that television camera,
knowing that her face was front and center.
- Marjorie Russell: She had to push harder than most people do.
And pushing through when she didn't feel comfortable.
A lot of times, we tend to choose the easiest path.
I doubt if Nancy ever saw an easy path.
- Nancy: Here's the rundown.
- Laurie Gorman: But I think
knowing the bigger mission
that she was on,
which was to educate,
which was to share her knowledge with people
to help them on their journey.
I think that's what helped her overcome
those moments of self-doubt.
- Nancy: That's what next on Sewing With Nancy .
* [ Sewing With Nancy theme music] *
- Marjorie Russell: By the early '90s, Nancy's program
was being produced by Wisconsin Public Television.
- Announcer: Welcome to Sewing With Nancy,
TV's how-to sewing program with your host, Nancy Zieman.
- Nancy: Welcome to our second program
on "Stitch-Again Wardrobe."
In this program...
- Laurie Gorman: She knew all her sewing stuff,
but she had to know all the TV stuff, too,
to really make that show work.
- Nancy: You just need to practice.
- Ted Zieman: My mom's TV show,
it was a lot of work.
But I think she liked the team that she had.
- Nancy: Set those here.
- Ted: The team that could help her sew,
the team that could help her get it all together.
And then, team of PBS,
where they would make it all happen.
- Director: Three, two, and cue.
* [bouncy upbeat music]
- Ben White: The cameras actually became her students.
And she had great rapport with the crew,
where Nancy was teaching us how to do everything.
- Cassie Kienert: When we would get done with a take,
we'd often get to a point where we'd be like,
"Oh, we got that" as a crew.
And that was kind of the baseline of,
"Did the crew understand it?"
Then we knew the audience would understand it
because we kind of figured
that we were the lowest common denominator of her audience.
[both laugh]
- Nancy: Make it look the way you'd like it to be
when it's completed.
- Mary Mulari: Nancy's presentation was key.
Her audience could envision themselves
doing what she's doing.
- Nancy: Here's a close-up,
and just straight stitching down the front of the jacket.
- Eileen Roche: She really wanted the viewer to
know how to do it.
She wanted them to see what they would see
when they sit at the machine.
- Laurie Gorman: Now, because of that,
she would often say that her sewing on TV
was not her best work
because of the way she had to angle herself
for the camera to see what she was doing.
- Nancy: Sometimes when I'm talking,
I don't always sew the straightest.
- Cassie Kienert: She would sew completely side-angle
and have to do this so this the camera could get the shot.
So, your body isn't in the correct placement
to actually guide the machine like you would at home.
- Leslie Fitzsimmons: She was always canted a certain way
and just like contorting her body.
- Ben White: But Nancy really wanted to make sure
the viewer was seeing it how they needed to see it
so they could replicate it at home.
- Nancy: It's really easy.
Then, on your foot,
you'll find that there are toes.
You have a foot, you gotta have toes. [laughs]
So, there's a single toe in the back.
And sometimes, there's a triple toe in the front.
- Eileen Roche: Oh, I think it was Nancy's life's purpose,
to teach America how to sew.
* [soft piano music]
Eileen Roche: Her viewers really felt
that she was in their sewing room.
And they really felt that
it was a personal lesson with Nancy.
- Mary Mulari: And in doing that,
Nancy certainly created a community.
- Viewer: Just a creative lady,
and she would make things
that look challenging and difficult, easy.
- Viewer: And just giving you the confidence
to go ahead and do it.
- Viewer: And Nancy does that on her show.
* [soft piano music]
[cassette tape playing] - The scope of the TV show is beyond sewing and quilting.
Because people take from it
what they need.
Hi, I'm Nancy Zieman.
Thank you for joining me.
Welcome to Sewing With Nancy .
I teach sewing,
but if they need companionship,
that's what they get from it.
If they need a connection from the past,
that's what they get from it.
If they need encouragement,
that's what they pull.
- Marjorie Russell: Nancy understood early on
that people love to create,
and they love to have the confidence to create.
- Nancy: Just a little touch of creativity.
- Viewer: Her love of sewing, and her love of teaching,
it makes your heart just so warm.
- Viewer: You can tell she loved what she was doing.
- Viewer: And she inspired that in a lot of people.
* [gentle piano music]
- Ben White: People tuned in to watch Nancy
because she was a person.
She was real.
- Nancy: Sewing takes patience and practice.
- Gina Crispell: Her viewers considered her a friend.
Like your sister, your neighbor, your aunt,
teaching you how to sew,
because that's who she was.
She was a mom.
- Nancy: Patty cake, patty cake, there.
- Gina Crispell: A wife,
a daughter, a sister.
That was her.
[blows raspberries, smooches baby Tom]
- Rich Zieman: Oh, who is it?
- Nancy: I'm Fozzie Bear.
- Rich Zieman: Oh, hi, Fozzie.
- Nancy (as Fozzie): Night, night!
- Ted Zieman: She was always to me a mom,
not Sewing With Nancy .
She was my mom.
* [tender instrumental music]
[Nancy speaks indistinctly]
- Tom Zieman: My mom was exactly the person
off-screen, as on-screen,
that she comes off to be.
- Where are the balloons?
Oh.
- Tom Zieman: Growing up on the farm is foundationally
what set up my mom's character for everything.
Everything can be traced back to that experience.
- Gina Crispell: Salt of the earth values,
I mean, what you saw with Nancy is what you get.
Just kind and humble
and generous.
- Ted Zieman: Everything she did, she liked to create.
She liked to bake: that's creating something.
Sewing: she liked to create something.
Gardening: creating something.
- Tom Zieman: My mother was also
a second- and third-grade Sunday school teacher
for as long as I can remember.
- Rich Zieman: So again, teacher, she's a teacher.
She taught for 25 years.
- Ted Zieman: She did it
because she was so blessed
with what she has,
and that's her way to give back.
- Tom Zieman: Faith is a fundamental tenement
to my mom and my family.
Faith in God
and the importance of faith and family.
- Nancy: You know what Teddy said yesterday?
[speaking dramatically] Yesterday was the most wonderful day of his life.
Wasn't it, Ted? [laughing warmly]
There we are!
[Nancy and Rich laughing]
- Rich Zieman: She was a very good role model
and mom to the boys.
[birds chirping]
- Ted Zieman: She really tried to live her life
to be a good example.
That was the biggest way she would teach.
* [gentle guitar music]
- Tom Zieman: When both my brother and I
started having kids,
just being a grandma, you know,
that was definitely a priority.
[Nancy rasping]
- Nancy: One more time.
[sewing machine whirring]
Now, cut the threads.
[sewing machine beeps]
- Ted Zieman: Watching her read with the kids,
she loved doing it.
And then, the kids would just snuggle into her
and they all loved it.
[Rich Zieman laughs warmly]
- Rich Zieman: She couldn't have been a better grandmother.
She just loved them to death.
[Tom 'whooshes', baby emulates]
- Tom Zieman: Her real talent was in embracing people.
My mother experienced early on
of being prejudged.
And I think my mom's ability to
take the time to get to know people
was really her God-given talent.
- Gina Crispell: She had a lot of perspective.
And she just was so caring for everybody because
I think she had hurt a lot in her life.
And so that made her care for others.
- Ted Zieman: That's just, I guess, a life lesson,
a motto to live by.
"Never forget about kindness."
* [dramatic guitar music]
- Nancy: Perhaps the question
that most of you would like to ask me
but are a little afraid to do so
has nothing to do with fabric and thread.
The topic, my face.
* [soft piano music]
- Gina Crispell: She always said to me,
"If you are on TV, don't Google yourself."
- Tom Zieman: Anytime you would start to Google my mom's name,
the recommended search result was "Nancy Zieman stroke face."
- Gina Crispell: "Nancy Zieman, what's wrong with her face?"
- Nancy: Obviously, I'm not symmetrical.
My eye and mouth on my right side
have a partial paralysis called Bell's palsy.
- Rich Zieman: Seeing that on the Internet,
it really set her back.
After all the things she's dealt with on it throughout life,
this moment affected her the most.
She decided, "Well then, let me open up about it."
- Nancy: To address your curiosity
and also answer some of those questions,
I've invited a special guest.
I'd like you to meet Dr. Justin Sattin.
- Marjorie Russell: She brought a neurologist on her show,
who spoke about Bell's palsy.
- Dr. Justin Sattin: Which is, by definition,
a facial nerve weakness of uncertain cause.
- Gina Crispell: She wanted those questions
answered for her viewers.
- Dr. Justin Sattin: Like an inner ear infection,
as is likely when it occurs in a young child.
- Nancy: That was what caused onset of mine.
- Laurie Gorman: That episode generated a huge response.
There was a tremendous outpouring of support for Nancy.
But it was also a moment where she realized
her show could bring something beyond sewing to her viewers.
- Rich Zieman: It led to her continuing on
with not always having the closing of the show
dealing with sewing
but dealing with other topics that would benefit people.
*
- Laurie Gorman: It wasn't just a sewing show anymore.
It was a show that was reaching out across the globe
with people who had things to give in service of others.
- Ben White: Nancy was connecting these places of cause
with people that wanted to give back.
- Gorman: The bulk of the topics dealt with charitable sewing,
which would be, for example,
making comfort caps for people who have lost their hair
due to chemotherapy,
or making and donating quilts to the homeless.
- Nancy: This tireless group of volunteers
has made a difference.
- Ben White: People would immediately want
to give to that cause.
The items would roll in not by like the tens or hundreds
but by the thousands.
- Cassie Kienert: The community came out
for Nancy.
* [dramatic instrumental]
[playing tape recording] - Nancy: Sewing With Nancy
is more than just teaching people how to sew.
It gives people a vehicle
to be creative
and to help those who need.
* [uplifting instrumental]
- Deanna Springer: Charity sewing and community service sewing
is really another way of sharing your love of sewing.
- Ben White: Sewers and quilters want to give
and they want to help.
[sewers conversing]
- Viewer: It's just heartwarming.
- Viewer: People have helped me so much through my life.
It's my turn to give back now.
- Viewer: The feeling that you get,
when you've put work into something
and then give it to someone of your own free will,
you get something in your heart,
that just is very important
for your soul
and for other people that you touch
with what you've made for them.
And that's just a feeling that you don't get otherwise.
- Eileen Roche: Sewers are givers, yeah.
Mm-hmm, absolutely.
- Marjorie Russell: Nancy was constantly looking
for ways to connect people,
not just to present projects.
The core of her success was connecting people.
* [joyful instrumental]
- Nancy: I was just a conduit for this.
It was very touching
what people were doing for others.
The gift is in the giving.
* [hopeful instrumental]
- Laurie Gorman: Nancy was... was many things.
Obviously, she was an entrepreneur,
a television host,
but she was also an artist.
She was designing patterns for the McCall Pattern Company
and she was making a lot of landscape quilts.
- Nancy: Now we do this messy cutting along the edges
to make it ragged and, Natalie, you're pro at that.
- Natalie Sewell: Let me just show you how I do this.
- Deanna Springer: Natalie Sewell taught
Nancy how to landscape quilt.
- Sewell: The leaf fabric is boring, Nancy.
- Nancy: It is.
- Don't you think that's really boring?
So, let's paint it.
Now you don't have to be
a graduate in an art course for this
because watch us.
[highlighter scratching]
- Laurie Gorman: This was all new to Nancy,
somebody who came from
a very rule-oriented approach to sewing.
Landscape quilting was nothing like that.
- Eileen Roche: It's not very rigid... at all.
You know, it's cutting and it's rough cutting.
- Laurie Gorman: Natalie would take highlighters
and color in some of the fabric.
She would take sharpies and make new detail
that didn't exist before.
- Eileen Roche: And they used glue!
I mean, how many rules were they breaking there, right?
[laughs]
- Oil pastel is
the hint for adding sunshine.
- Natalie Sewall: Right.
- Tom Zieman: When you look at her landscape quilts, a lot of them are actually inspired
by growing up on the farm.
[cassette player clicking]
- Nancy: In the summer, I'd pick the flowers.
Trilliums, M ay flowers,
and I would spend lots of time in the woods.
Just a walk in the woods is so, so wonderful.
* [peaceful instrumental]
- Tom Zieman: Learning landscape quilting
later on in her career
reinvigorated what she was doing.
- Nancy: So I think you'll get the hang of this.
- Marjorie Russell: And it was just something that
spoke to her at a time in her life
when she really needed it.
[birds chirping]
Rich and Nancy decided
that perhaps it was time
to look for a buyer for Nancy's Notions.
- Rich Zieman: We had reached a point where
we had 120 employees
and we had great sales and a rather large facility.
- Ted Zieman: Financially, it was a smart move.
I mean, small business,
you're growing and growing,
and it's a lot of responsibility.
- Russell: And in the end, the Tacony Corporation
purchased it.
- Ted Zieman: For my parents,
ultimately, it wasn't their company anymore.
But she was under contract to work there,
I believe, for five years,
and I think that was
the most stressful five years of her life.
* [solemn music]
- Tom Zieman: Like many purchases and mergers,
I'm sure in business,
the transition doesn't always go
as smoothly as it's planned.
There were some issues
with fulfillment and computer systems
and things that didn't quite mesh
when two businesses combined.
And that was a very hard thing for my mom.
[cassette player clicks]
- Nancy: From the warehouse to the order entry
to purchasing,
there was nothing that worked.
Things were all...
askew.
I was so frustrated.
So frustrated, I got the shingles.
- Kathy Gittus: I think she felt
it was all on her to make
this acquisition work for everybody.
- Marjorie Russell: There was an internal conflict constantly
for Nancy at that point.
- Kathy Gittus: It kept her up at night
trying to figure out how to make it better,
how to make it more efficient,
how to keep this family together
and keeping this family going.
[recording] - Nancy: I feel like I am strapped to a sleigh,
with all of the troubles behind me,
and I am trying to pull this sleigh up the hill.
I felt I couldn't do it,
and I couldn't.
* [dramatic instrumental] But going through this,
I was just thinking, "Trust, trust, trust."
"You are making the right decision,
and you will be guided."
- Rich Zieman: Through that whole process,
her faith and trust,
trust in the Lord,
was her foundation.
- Tom Zieman: Never losing sight of that
gave her the reassurance to know,
this will be fine.
- Marjorie Russell: And she just was able
to let go of what she couldn't control.
- Gittus: After five years, she was able to walk away.
She was burnt out, needed to be refreshed,
needed to try some new things.
- Nancy: I'm ready, are you ready?
- Crew: We are. - Places.
- Deb Piper: Three, two, and cue her.
- Nancy: This is a special day on Sewing With Nancy .
It's our 30th-anniversary special.
[studio audience applauds] Thank you, thank you!
- Ben White: In 2012, Nancy filmed
her 30th-anniversary episode.
- Nancy: I thought it best to...
- Eileen Roche: Well, 30 years on television,
I mean, who does that?
- Leslie Fitzsimmons: Thirty years is a lot.
That's a lot of TV she made.
- Laurie Gorman: It was an opportunity
for Nancy to look back through the years,
to share some special moments,
and to give fans a look
at the series in its entirety.
* [warm instrumental music]
- Viewer: Nancy, happy 30th!
- Laurie Gorman: Nancy also brought back her regular guests
that she had had throughout the years.
- Deanna Springer: Guests like Gail Brown and Mary Mulari
and Eileen Roche.
[audience laughing]
- Laurie Gorman: More importantly, she was
able to have some of her family there.
- Nancy: Pay special attention to a cute little blond boy
who is holding a kitty.
- Ted Zieman: Yeah, I was on a couple.
I was a very rambunctious little boy on that show.
[laughs]
- Gina Crispell: He was a wild child,
and he was jumping all over.
He was, he was something. [laughs]
- Ted Zieman: I don't think she ever wanted to do another show
after that with a kid on. [Ted laughs jovially]
- Mary Mulari: It was a really nice time of celebration
and acknowledgement of all the work
needed to produce a show for that many years.
- Nancy: This became my classroom.
- Rich Zieman: Well, you think it's all Nancy.
No, it's about 40 other people too, so. [laughs]
- Nancy: Most of you know this program as Sewing With Nancy,
but really it should be called
Sewing With Nancy, Donna, Pat, Kate, Diane, Lois, Deanna...
You get the idea.
* [bright instrumental]
- Gorman: Sewing With Nancy through the years
became more than just a production,
it became more than just
working on a TV show.
- Ben White: She was our friend.
Wasn't just a TV host,
wasn't just the host of Sewing With Nancy .
She was Nancy Zieman, our friend.
- You really wanted to do your best for Nancy because
she just brought out the best in you.
- Ben White: You know, there's not many
times in life or people that you meet
that do that.
- Cassie Kienert: Nancy was special in that way.
- Nancy: It's humbling to be here after 30 years.
So many people to help me.
I'm just one small part of it.
- Marjorie Russell: She was not only recapping
30 years of having been on television.
She was celebrating
the people who had been there with her,
who had helped make Sewing With Nancy what it was.
[studio audience applauding]
- Nancy: Thanks!
- Laurie Gorman: She realized at that moment how much the show
and how much she meant to the people around her.
- Ted Zieman: It was pretty amazing.
And that's right before
pretty much everything started kinda...
tumbling.
[birds chirping]
- Rich Zieman: After the 30th-anniversary show,
Nancy was at home, and she loved to hang laundry out to dry,
but she just stumbled,
fell on her side and broke her, broke her femur.
[birds chirping]
- Ted Zieman: From that, the next three to four years
were just tough on her.
The pain would just not go away.
- Tom Zieman: It never felt like after 2012,
that she was ever really healthy again.
* [dramatic instrumental]
- Rich Zieman: Early in 2015, her leg cracked.
The tumor in her bone that had grown about
to the size of about six or seven inches
and had actually physically cracked the bone,
and it was cancerous.
She had osteosarcoma bone cancer.
- Tom Zieman: It results in a surgery.
And we got into a period of remission
where things were looking really good.
- Ted Zieman: But three months after all this happened,
she had a checkup and she has triple-negative breast cancer.
She decided to go through chemotherapy and radiation,
and that was hell for her.
- Marjorie Russell: Nancy Zieman is no quitter.
And something called cancer was not going to stop her.
* [insistent instrumental]
- Nancy: So, preparation is first
and I have a single motif up here.
- Ben White: Nancy was sick,
but she still wanted to continue with Sewing With Nancy .
- Eileen Roche: With a vengeance.
She really went back to work with a vengeance.
- Nancy: I call it "Change-Up Patchwork."
- Ben White: She wasn't done teaching.
- Leslie Fitzsimmons: I think ultimately
it was her purpose, right?
Like that was what she was here to contribute,
here to do,
and if she was still capable of doing it, she would.
- Good to have you back, Eileen.
- Eileen Roche: They were very difficult days
and Nancy was in so much pain.
- Deanna Springer: Oh, yeah, it was really, really tough.
It was really to keep her mind off of it.
- Eileen Roche: She felt if she stopped,
she would lose her battle right then.
- Leslie Fitzsimmons: But if there was any wallowing,
we never saw it.
If there was any sort of pity party, we were not invited.
- Mary Mulari: When the camera rolled,
she would step up and be Nancy.
- Nancy: Fabric that is great for projects.
- Mary Mulari: We can certainly use lots of that, Nancy.
She, she was tough.
[conversation in background]
- Nancy: Hello.
- Richard Zieman: She ended the chemotherapy
and got healthier.
Forty years. - Forty years.
- All right, so!
- Ted Zieman: Yeah, it seemed like she beat it.
- Rich Zieman: It was a wonderful time.
Nancy was feeling good.
Life appeared to be getting back to normal.
We've said that many times, but we really felt it.
- Ted Zieman: Memorial Day weekend 2017.
My parents came up. [laughs]
And so, it was fun.
They were leaving and she had her cane,
and they're walking out the front door.
And I was walking out, and something just told me,
"All right, turn around and take a picture."
So I did.
Two weeks later, she found out she had cancer again.
* [somber music]
- Kathy Gittus: Here's another hill that she has to climb.
And I don't know how many times you climb that hill.
- Tom Zieman: My mom called me
and basically choked out the words
that she had cancer again,
and there won't be any heroics this time.
- Rich Zieman: That was her decision, that I'm not--
I can't do chemotherapy after the chemo I went through.
- Tom Zieman: The fallout from that was so severe on her body
that I think she figured,
I would rather spend the rest of the time I have
being comfortable and having the rest of my days
than actively trying to fight this
and ultimately losing out anyway.
* [somber music]
- Nancy: You want to find what you like?
- Avery: This one! - Oh, okay, that's good.
- Nancy: I sew for fun with my granddaughters,
Avery and Luella.
My guess is that there are kids in your life
that will enjoy the sewing experience.
"I Sew for Fun,"
that what's next on Sewing With Nancy .
- Ben White: The last program of Sewing With Nancy
is called "I Sew for Fun."
- Laurie Gorman: "I Sew for Fun" was gonna be a series
of three Sewing With Nancy episodes
that focused on sharing your love of sewing
with others in your life.
- Deanna Springer: We were to record segments
with Nancy's grandchildren,
and some friends and their children.
- Gorman: So, the first thing that was shot
was the footage at Nancy's house,
with her granddaughters
and with the other sewing pairs.
[sewing machine whirring]
- Nancy: Okay.
- Ben White: You could kind of see it in Nancy,
that she was in a little bit more pain than usual.
- Ted Zieman: Her head just hurt so bad
and then she would get up
and all she wanted to do was just do this show
with these kids
because she knew she needed to do it.
[Nancy laughing]
- Laurie Gorman: So we're gonna spend one day capturing all that footage,
and then spend another day back at the studio
and Nancy would do all the sewing segments
that we need for a Sewing With Nancy program.
- Ben White: But Nancy wasn't able to come back to the studio.
* [somber music]
- Deanna Springer: After that record day,
Nancy had received her terminal diagnosis.
The pain was so, so bad that Nancy wanted to cancel
the in-studio record.
- Laurie Gorman: She called me and she kind of fell apart on the phone.
And said that she couldn't,
she wasn't gonna be able to finish a show.
That was devastating because
that episode meant so much to her.
It was with her grandkids.
- Rich Zieman: So, Laurie called her and said,
"Nancy, let's get one half-hour show done."
"We won't get three done,
but I'm bringing the crew and we're coming to your house."
She just knew how much Nancy wanted to do this.
- Laurie Gorman: We found a time that worked for Nancy
when she thought she'd be having a good day.
All we would need from her
was to have her sitting in a chair,
reading some lines of script
that would help lead us through this episode.
- Nancy: I think I have about as much gas in the tank to do this.
- Gina Crispell: She never didn't finish what she started.
- Ted Zieman: When you're that passionate about something,
you want to make it happen, you're gonna get it done.
[Nancy exhales painfully, sniffs]
- Ben White: Five, four, three.
- Barbara Luedtke Eckstein: She did it.
- Nancy: I sew for fun with my granddaughters,
Avery and Luella.
Lots of rules are disregarded
with a big dose of fun encouraged.
- Barbara Luedtke Eckstein: It was just a miracle
that she pulled it off.
- That's what's next on Sewing With Nancy .
- Marjorie Russell: That episode represented everything
that Nancy had ever worked for.
- Laurie Gorman: It really was a culmination of the entire series
and what it was about, which was
sharing your love of sewing.
That's all Nancy was about.
- Marjorie Russell: She did it with a great deal of grace.
- Ben White: That's what she showed in that episode.
That's what she showed by being able to do one more day.
- Nancy: That's good, that's good.
- White: It was the right episode to end on
with her grandchildren.
- Rich Zieman: Was just wonderful for her
and really helped bring
the closure to be able to take a deep breath
and say, "Okay, yeah, that's it."
- Nancy: It's great to have them part of my show.
It's just kind of
makes everything so fun and nice!
- Rich Zieman: Her phrase at the end of the show,
'Bye for now,'
she got to say it one more time.
[inhales] So...
[Baby Adeline cooing]
- And, Adeline, should we say,
"Thanks for joining us. Bye for now."
[Nancy laughs affectionately]
* [gentle piano music]
*
- Tom Zieman: Her most rewarding moments
with the TV show
was when would come up to her and say,
"You know, your show got me through cancer treatments."
"Your show got me through a really rough divorce."
- Rich Zieman: Nancy would just say to people, "I'm just a teacher,"
but it's how she taught that connected them.
- Nancy: You just need to practice.
- Viewer: She was huge
for so many of us.
- Viewer: Her warm low-key style
invited the viewer to try something new
and inspired us.
[Natalie Sewell and Nancy laugh]
- Viewer: She made you feel
as if you were the only one there.
- Viewer: She makes everybody just feel like
you're part of a family.
It's a treasured memory.
[studio audience applauds]
- Nancy: Thank you to our audience
and especially to you, our viewers,
for inviting me into your homes,
and I will forever be grateful for that.
And as I end each program,
thanks for joining me, bye for now.
[applause]
- Barbara Luedtke Eckstein: I always prayed
that she wouldn't become an introvert.
God answered that prayer.
Introvert?!?
- Nancy: Hi, I'm Nancy Zieman;
Welcome to Sewing With Nancy .
- Barbara Luedtke Eckstein: That was just amazing.
[laughs warmly]
[cassette player clicks]
- Nancy: I find it just fascinating.
I didn't plan on this.
But when the opportunity was there...
Nancy: Now comes the moment of truth!
...I took it.
*
* [gentle music]
*
- Funding for Nancy Zieman: Extraordinary Grace
is provided by
John W. and Lenore L. Landry Endowment Fund,
Eleanor and Thomas Wildrick Family
Stanley J. Cottrill Fund,
Diane Dempsey,
Elizabeth Olson,
Ruth Ann Potts,
Focus Fund for Wisconsin Programming,
and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.