Grace Snyder

Grace Bell McCance Snyder (April 23, 1882 – December 8, 1982), is an American quilter, former pioneer and centenarian, whose story is known through the books No Time on My Hands and Pioneer Girl: Growing Up on the Prairie.

Childhood
Grace McCance went to Nebraska with her parents in 1885 to homestead in a sod house in Custer County, which her father acquired through the Homestead Act. She had nine siblings. She had three childhood dreams: to create the most beautiful quilts, to look down from a cloud, and to marry a cowboy. As a small child, she pieced quilt blocks while tending the family's cows. It would be years before she made a quilt from purchased fabric instead of scraps.

Adulthood
McCance grew up in Nebraska Sand Hills, where she first met her future husband, Bert, at 17. He offered to help her family when her father fell ill. She met Bert again at 21, where they married in 1903 and spent 53 years together before his passing.

They lived on a ranch forty miles (70 km) northwest of North Platte, where they raised four children: Nellie Snyder Yost, Miles, Billie, and Bertie.

The relatively isolated ranch life gave McCance ample time for quilting, going to far as to keep a box of quilting supplies with her as she drove around the ranch. But her move to Oregon in 1927 gave her even more time once she was freed from farming responsibilities. She slowly became nationally recognized for the skill and complexity of her quilts.

During times of poverty in her area, she created the Helping Hand Club, which gave quilts and assistance to those in need.

Grace was also proficient at crochet, embroidery, and other fabric work.

McCance lived to be 100 years old. She is buried in North Platte Cemetery in North Platte, Nebraska.

Career
Snyder won many awards and ribbons in local Nebraska quilting competitions. The Womens’ International Exhibition displayed four of her quilts in 1950.

Although quilt-making became less popular nationwide during the mid 20th century, Snyder continued to produce work throughout her adult life.

The Congress of Quilters Hall of Fame in Arlington, Virginia, inducted her in 1980, as did the Nebraska Quilters Hall of Fame in 1986.

America's Best Quilts of the 20th century includes Petit Point Flower Baskets: her quilt with upwards of 85,000 fabric pieces.

Books
McCance is remembered by her own memoir No Time On My Hands as told to her daughter Nellie Snyder Yost. Her story is also told in the children's biography Pioneer Girl: Growing Up on the Prairie by Andrea Warren (Morrow Junior Books, 1998).