By Anne Ruisi
You could say four years of high school home economics and crafting skills learned in her youth laid the groundwork for Helen Tankersley’s retirement and her work as a volunteer at the Hoover Senior Center.
At 77, the Hoover resident is an energetic crafter who shares her skills in the community in a variety of ways, including teaching and enhancing the décor of the senior center’s tables for its monthly senior luncheons.
“If I can help one person in any way, I just feel good,” she said.
She learned how to knit and far beyond sewing basics at Lawrenceburg High School in her native Tennessee, Tankersley said. By sophomore year, she and her classmates were hand sewing a baby’s dress and a slip to go with it, and during junior year, she made a full-sized, three-piece suit – with a lining.
She lived in Tennessee and worked at South Central Bell in Nashville until 1984, when she moved to the company’s Birmingham office for a job that offered better opportunity for promotion. She made the move from Music City to the Magic City, bought a home in Hoover and the next year, on Jan. 25, 1985, met her future husband, Richard Tankersley.
He was a runner and member of the Birmingham Track Club. The couple often spent Saturday mornings at a race, followed by breakfast. She wasn’t a runner at first, although eventually she started running. “I was a cheerleader,” Tankersley said.
She supported the group at races and served as track club president for two years.
“That was only because they couldn’t find anybody else to be president,” she said, adding that she edited the club’s newsletter for 10 years.
“It was and still is a good track club. The running community here is a great group. Really, they are very caring,” Tankersley said.
Richard was such an enthusiastic runner that when the couple married in her hometown in Central Tennessee in 1988, they drove to East Tennessee that evening so he could run in a midnight race in Pigeon Forge, Tankersley said.
Her track club participation tapered off after Richard passed away in March 2007.
“It was not the same” without him there, she said.
Tankersley continued working after her husband’s death but retired several years later, in 2014. With more time on her hands, the Hoover Senior Center became her second home.
“I’m busy all the time,” she said.
Her love for fiber crafts that began in high school led to teaching crochet and becoming involved in other activities there, including having served as president of the senior center’s advisory board.
During her years at the senior center, members turned to Tankersley for help with simple troubleshooting their smartphones and computers since she had a background in telecommunications and computers. She got the center’s permission to volunteer at a set time once a month to help seniors with their tech questions, like how to download an app.
Twelve people showed up at once, which was “overwhelming,” Tankersley said, realizing it would be better to help them one-on-one. She now helps other seniors twice a month, on the first and third Tuesdays of every month.
At any given time, table decorations for the center’s monthly luncheons might very well have been some of her creations. In 2022, her last year as advisory board president, for example, at Halloween she crocheted and knitted 24 little pumpkins, and at Christmas, she made 120 Christmas stockings that were a little smaller than a smartphone.
Work Expands Beyond Center
While the senior center is a big part of her life, activities outside the senior center keep Tankersley busy, too. She teaches classes at Knit Birmingham, a shop on Claremont Avenue on Southside, where she’s currently giving lessons in Tunisian crochet and how to create granny squares.
She enjoys a variety of crafts, including knitting and quilting, and makes items for people in need. Baby blankets and bibs are among the children’s items she makes and those for seniors include shawls, hats and booties. Tankersley said she does this as a way to give back in gratitude for the people who showed kindness and care for her late mother, who had dementia.
Testing crochet and knitting patterns for designers from around the world is another aspect of retirement Tankersley enjoys.
She’s gained a sterling reputation for her skills on ravelry.com, a website for people who enjoy knitting and crocheting. Pattern testing involves making an item to see whether the design is accurate and can be made according to the instructions before the design is released.
“I’ve been told that one lady in Australia likes the way I test, and she (has) contacted me several times to do some testing,” Tankersley said.
