NQA Leadership
Marilyn Gore, Communications Chair
Marilyn was born and raised in the rural, farming community of Bolivia, NC where sewing and quilting were necessities and which she learned at the age of fourteen. Her first sewing experience was helping her mother make woven and tied floor rugs from feed sacks and tobacco twine and she later learned how to embroider and decorate homemade pillowcases from her mother, Mattie Pearl.
Later, in Marilyn's home economics classes she learned to construct garments. Scraps from her garments were used to make her first quilt, an eight-pointed star quilt. Marilyn's second quilt, a lone star, came from scraps of polyester fabrics.
She graduated from Bennett College with a degree in Home Economics, Clothing and Textiles. She continued her studies at Howard University, Washington, D.C., where her Master's thesis centered on a historical study of North Carolina quilt making.
Marilyn retired from the North Carolina Cooperative Extension in 2007. She has served in several national executive board positions with the National Extension Association of Family and Consumer Sciences (NEAFCS), including President in 2004-2005.
Marilyn is an avid quilter, using such techniques as traditional, paper piecing and crazy quilting in her hand-quilted quilts. She has completed over 50 quilts. She is a member of the Charlotte Quilters Guild and the Friendship Missionary Baptist Church Quilting Ministry.