Indy 500 ‘Quilt Lady’ dies: She gave winning drivers hand-stitched blankets since 1976

INDIANAPOLIS — Jeanetta Holder, perfectly enough, was born on an Indianapolis 500 race day in May 1932 on a family farm in Kentucky. Throughout her nine decades of life, she raced stock cars, claiming to be the first woman to flip one, worked part time hanging wallpaper and — most notably — became the beloved “Quilt Lady” at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Since 1976, when Holder gave Johnny Rutherford a hand-stitched red, white and blue quilt after he won the Indy 500, she has given more than 40 patchwork masterpieces to the Speedway’s race victors, as well as hundreds more to drivers at other tracks, a few celebrities and even President Jimmy Carter.

Depending on the year, and the winning driver, Holder’s Indy 500 quilts have been adorned with checkered flags, Chevrolets, Tony Hulman’s likeness, Borg Warner trophies and, almost always, hand-stitched autographs of drivers.

When Holder died last week at 91 years old, the racing community mourned a woman who never charged a penny for the hundreds of hours she spent on the quilts, not to mention the materials she bought in bulk.

She just loved racing, quilting and, especially, the drivers.

“The drivers do so much to make us happy,” Holder said in a May 1988 Indianapolis News article. “So, this is my gift to them.”

After Holder’s death last week, IMS president Doug Boles told IndyStar that Holder’s quilts were a perfect example of the organic traditions surrounding the Speedway.

“We don’t start these traditions,” he said. “The fans start these traditions. This is something Jeanetta started. This was her thing.”

And the drivers loved it.

“They welcomed Jeanetta and her quilts with open arms,” said Laura Steele, local media personality and Indy 500 reporter. “Her quilts were like a cozy gift on a warm, May day from someone who feels like your grandma, from someone who loves you.”

‘I know what it’s like to get upside down in a stock car’

Holder was born May 30, 1932, near Bowling Green, Kentucky, the same day Fred Frame won the Indy 500. It was the 20th running of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing and it was a memorable one as 26 of the 40 cars dropped out due to crashes or mechanical failure.

Growing up, Holder liked to boast that she was born on an Indy 500 race day. But she wasn’t sure which she loved more — racing or sewing. As a young girl, she would make clothes for her sister, who lived at a school for the blind, and she would sew tiny clothes for her dolls.

When she was 10, Holder concocted her first miniature race car using tobacco sticks and lard can lids for the body sheathing, she told David M. Brown in 2016. She used a nail as a shifter.

By the time she was 18, Holder was a trailblazer. She was a woman behind the wheel racing cars in 1950, which was virtually unheard of at the time.

On the oval dirt track, Holder gained a reputation for determined driving, Brown wrote. “I was the first lady to flip a car,” Holder said in 2016. “I was the second one, too.”

“I know what it’s like to get upside down in a stock car,” Holder told the Indianapolis News in 1988.

As she raced stock cars, Holder saw her first Indy 500 in 1950, watching Johnnie Parsons win a race that was stopped at 138 laps due to rain. She fell in love with racing at the Speedway.

When Holder met her husband, Clarence, in Indianapolis, they forged a bond over their love of speed. Clarence would travel to Pocono and Ontario to watch races. After they married, Holder and Clarence moved to Avon in 1962.

Their home was just a few miles west of the racetrack Holder loved so much. Living so close to IMS, Holder’s passion for the Indy 500 burgeoned.

In the early 1970s, with her own racing days behind her, Holder decided to find a way to do something to connect her love of racing with her newest hobby — making quilts.

‘Incredible woman who lived an extraordinary life’

The first year, Holder crafted a patriotic red, white and blue quilt, went to the 1976 Indy 500 and waited for Rutherford to be driven around the track in a convertible as a victor. Inside his garage, Holder handed Rutherford her blanket with a note that read, “Here’s a quilt I made for you,” according to Brown.

Rutherford’s wife, Betty, told the Indianapolis News in 1988 that the couple had two quilts crafted by Holder, one hanging on the wall of their Texas home and one on the bed.

“I’ve had many offers to buy them,” Betty said. “But they’re not for sale at any price.”

It wasn’t until the early 1970s that IMS opened the garage area to women and a 40-something Holder, never one to be shy about her love of racing, said it was about time.

She promptly made her way into the garages, walked up to drivers and began collecting autographs on pieces of white fabric squares. From there, she started including drivers’ autographs on quilts, hand stitching the letters over their signatures.

Just a decade after she got access to the garage area, Holder’s quilts were embroidered with more than 200 autographs of drivers.

“You see, a driver won’t just go up to another driver and say, ‘I want your autograph,’” Holder told the News. “But they are so happy when I make the autographs for them.”

Through the years, Holder has presented the quilts to the winners in the garage area, in Victory Circle and the day after the race during the victor’s photo session. She usually gave the drivers a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

One of Boles’ favorite photos from his time at IMS is one he snapped of four-time Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves and two-time winner Juan Pablo Montoya in front of one of Holder’s quilts, on which she had accidentally swapped their autographs.

That quilt was hanging on the back wall of the IMS Museum. Throughout the years, many of Holder’s quilts made their way into public places, including the Speedway Motel, where the blankets would be raffled off.

“She was so proud of all of that. But she was over the moon that her quilt was in the IMS Museum,” said Steele, who became friends with Holder after doing a story on her in 2016. “Her love of IMS came out in the making of quilts.”

But Holder was more than just the “Quilt Lady,” Robby Unser posted on his Facebook page after Holder’s death.

“She was very special to me and my family. She used to babysit Jeri and I at races. I will cherish the wonderful time I got to spend with her at her farm in Bowling Green over the last several years,” wrote Unser, a former driver and son of Bobby Unser. “She was an incredible woman, who lived an extraordinary life, and she will be greatly missed.”

Services for Holder are pending.

Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on X: @DanaBenbow. Reach her via email: dbenbow@indystar.com.