Updated at 9:50 a.m. June 14.
BROOKINGS – Doris Long of Brookings is nearing 92 and sharp as a tack.
She possesses the keen eyes of an eagle and is also a pretty good country tatter and weaver of fine linen with its miniscule knots that are as tiny as pin points. Add to that the accompanying twists and turns of the bobbins and it all magically interblends into beautifully delicate designs.
To inspire her artistic endeavors even more, Dori prefers to wear a long dress, matching bonnet and a pure white apron she fashioned from scratch to mirror what a farmwife of the 1890s might don.
She calls it her duster, and then pauses to show off the buttoned boots that complete the costume. “For working in the fields,” she jokes.
Long will be featured Saturday from 11 a.m. to about 3 p.m. at the Brookings County Museum in Volga’s City Park, all decked out in her duster and dainty boots, displaying her work and telling others about the joys and challenges of her nearly lost art during Volga’s Old Timers Day.
Dori, as she prefers to be called, retired in the mid-1990s and has since found her talent manipulating dozens of bobbins in sequences, placing the weft and warp of fine linen strands in an alignment that mutates into various renditions of the fine and nearly lost art of weaving linen.
Linen comes from the delicate fiber of flax. It’s been a favorite textile for thousands of years. Because of linen’s beautiful sheen, smooth surface and ability to withstand the rigors of time, it has been found – still in excellent condition – in the pyramids’ inner sanctums, some of it fashioned into beautiful fabric designs, and some of it assigned to the more mundane task of preserving mummified Egyptian rulers.
Linen is considered to be the crown jewel of fabric, and Dori’s linen weaving enhances everything from fancy coasters to baby booties.
She was born Doris Ruby on a farm, during a blizzard, near Ida Grove, Iowa, in 1929. She graduated from nearby Estherville High School and attended commercial college there. For a time she taught school until she and her husband, a nuclear physicist, moved to Washington, D.C., in the mid-1950s.
Dori and husband Philip raised three sons. He worked with atoms and she managed the household and found time to do volunteer work at their local Lutheran Church plus lobby Congress with other parents advocating for programs endorsed by the National Parent Teacher Association.
Her husband died in 1991 and a few years later she decided to move to San Antonio, Texas, “because it was much warmer and a lot less expensive to live there than in the D.C. area,” she quipped.
While at San Antonio she discovered her weaving passion and spent time volunteering as a docent at the Texas University San Antonio Institute of Texas Cultures, where she learned the art of weaving and was honored to be chosen to teach spinning, weaving and lace making at the institute.
Although San Antonio was to her liking, she desired to be closer to her three sons and five grandchildren. One of her sons, Dr. Kenric Malmberg, had joined Avera Health several years ago and moved to Brookings.
In 2019, missing the farmland of the upper Midwest, she decided to move back near her Iowa roots and her son. She’s now a popular addition to the residents of Sunrise Ridge Apartments.
“I’m enjoying Brookings very much,” she said. “The people are all so friendly and nice, and I think many of them would enjoy the hobby that I have found to be so satisfying.”
Patience is needed for weaving. Dori spends about an hour for every inch of weaving accomplished.
For her appearance at the Brookings County Museum Saturday she’ll also bring along many samples of her work, and the small bobbins and other tools that are needed for her art. She’s looking forward to meeting new friends at Old Timers Day, she said.
“I’m also hoping to find others who have an interest in the weaving of linen, or in tatting, so I encourage everyone to stop by and say hello,” she said.
Editor's note: This story, which appeared in the June 11 edition of The Brookings Register, misspelled the first name of its subject, Dori Long. She was born Doris Ruby in 1929, and Malmberg was her married name. One of her sons, Dr. Kenric Malmberg, practices at Avera Brookings.
