Written by Lisa Wolfe
Nido Volunteer and Journalist, who has worked at 60 Minutes and has written for The New York Times and O Magazine, among other publications
Betty Listello lives on the far east side of Manhattan in the kind of one-room apartment known as a studio. But she calls it “The Factory.”
At a cluster of work tables beside her kitchenette, she has made 429 baby quilts for the babies of Nido—so far.
“My goal is to get to 500,” she says.
But doesn’t she know that when she gets to 500 she will just keep going?
“Yes,” she laughs.
Her laugh is playful, like a child’s. But she is close to turning 89 years old. Body part hurt, sometimes a lot, and especially when she has been trimming, ironing, or sewing for too many minutes at a time. Her heart aches too. In 2023, she lost Phil, her love of 55 years—a war veteran, pharmacist, and early consultant on her quilts, who died at 103.
But start her on her work for Nido and she springs up from her chair, excited to lead a tour of The Factory—from the craft table where she cuts, irons, and lays out pieces of fabric; to the sewing table where she sews them together (sometimes between midnight and 4 AM when she can’t sleep); to the bookshelf-turned-fabric library, where small bundles of material are lined up like technicolor layer cakes.
“These are called Charm Packs,” she says, lifting a bundle of 5 inch squares off the shelf. “The great thing about the industry is they sell these packs of fabric that are color coordinated from that season’s collection and contain up to 42 different prints. It gives you so much possibility! And don’t you love the name Charm Packs?”
“These ones are Jelly Rolls,” she says, presenting another, larger bundle. “Jelly Rolls are cut 2 ½ inches wide and the full length of the fabric, which makes them great for borders. Again, you’ll get 42 colors of that specific designer’s palette for the season. And I just love the name Jelly Rolls!”
It’s a lot of material. None of it is cheap. Phil used to worry she was spending too much. But Betty budgets the way she does everything, meticulously, and though she is too modest to come out and say so, it is clear she takes pride in being able to spend the savings from her own long career however she pleases, thank you very much.
It was a remarkable career, especially for a woman of her generation who grew up poor on a farm in rural California. She did not know her father. She did not have siblings or toys. She did not go to college. But when a girlfriend who landed a glamorous job at Max Factor in New York asked if she’d accompany her on a road trip to New York, Betty jumped in the car.
Within days of arriving in New York, she landed a job as a secretary to a lawyer, steadily working her way up the corporate ladder until she became an assistant to the Rockefeller family, assigned to personal and legal matters so sensitive that she is still not at liberty to discuss them. (Though Peggy Rockefeller died enough years ago now that she will say this: Once when Betty was riding in the Rockefeller car to deliver one of Mrs. Rockefeller’s massive diamond rings to Christie’s for appraisal, she could not resist the temptation to try the ring on—and she could not get it off. She hid her hand as she walked into Christie’s, where the receptionist, evidently no stranger to such emergencies, took out a tub of Pond’s Cold Cream and helped Betty slide the thing off). As David Rockefeller neared the end of his career, he introduced Betty to Goldman Sachs, which sent her for paralegal training and assigned her to legal matters until she retired to spend more time with Phil.
Through it all, she made things: knitted clothes for Memorial Sloan Kettering Gift ship, beaded flowers that became part of 9/11 Memorial wreaths. But she didn’t make a quilt until 2018, when she first heard about Nido, one Sunday morning in church. Someone from the organization had come to talk about its mission to help lift families out of poverty by providing medical, emotional and educational support as well as essential material gifts.
Betty was moved. Especially because she’d grown up poor, she wanted to help. But she didn’t know how until a few days later, when she happened to visit her local library during children’s reading hour and noticed that the library had covered its grungy old carpet with quilts. The quilts gave the kids a clean and colorful surface to play on, but their bulk made them cumbersome to handle and wash. What if Betty made smaller, baby-size quilts that mothers could carry with them to put on floors and parks wherever they went?
“I wouldn’t have asked her for anything,” said Holly Fogle, the founder of Nido, who was inspired by growing up in poverty herself to help lift others out of it. “Betty was already close to 80 when I met her in church. But she came to us in the spirit of, This is what I have to offer.”
Four times a year, Nido distributes boxes of clothes, books and toys to families in need. It also gives a prenatal package—including stroller, crib and car seat—to pregnant women about a month before they give birth. Of course the distribution team was thrilled to start to include gorgeous, hand-made quilts in its prenatal packages. Now all Betty had to do was learn how to make them. She read books on quilting from the library, and watched hours of YouTube tutorials. She recruited Phil, with his keener sense of color, to be her color counselor. She made 24 quilts the first year. The next, 68. Except for the year Phil died and she was too sad to do much of anything, the number has steadily grown. Last year, she made 99.
“My model is more Iacocca than Ford,” she laughs.
Betty doesn’t feel up to the trip to Washington Heights, so church volunteers deliver the quilts, and she has not personally met the baby recipients. But she feels connected to each one by the final step of her quilting process, when she hand sews the binding, repeating to herself like a mantra that each stitch is “a hug, a kiss, and a prayer.” Because she wouldn’t wish her own unhappy childhood on anyone, she wishes this: that each baby who receives her quilt will have a childhood as beautiful as her adulthood has been.
No two quilts are alike. Betty takes and files photos of each one to make sure there is no duplication. To guard against such other sacrileges as imperfectly aligned corners of fabric, she will pore over the craft table inspecting and reinspecting layouts until her body aches. She might cut short a day’s work if she is not feeling well. But, she says firmly, “I do not ever skimp on quality control.”
Does she have to be this meticulous? No, she does not. Would the babies of Nido be just as happy with a less perfect gift? Most probably, yes. But the over-the-top attention that Betty pays to each quilt makes them even more meaningful.
“We could easily buy blankets to put in the prenatal package,” says Holly. “That’s not the point. There are angry narratives about our population. Our mothers are scared. They go through the city wanting to be unseen. The time and attention Betty puts into these quilts makes them feel seen. It makes them feel loved and welcome in a city that can feel so hostile. These quilts are like something their grandmother would have made for them back home.”
“Put it on the ground? Hell no!” says Ramona Nivar, who turned to Nido in 2016 as a mother in need and later received a quilt for her son. “I know that Betty made the quilts to go on the ground, and they are washable. But I would never put mine on the ground except when I am home. It is too beautiful! And expensive! You google what a quilt costs—it’s crazy. This is something I could never imagine having for my child. But I have it.”
“Mine is yellow with flowers and so many little details,” says Dagme Ramirez, who turned to Nido in 2018 when she lost her job while pregnant. “Betty took the time to give each quilt its own special details. I used mine to cover my son in his stroller, and I put it on the floor at home to pretend we were having a picnic. It is so beautiful I took a picture to send to my mother in Cuba. She couldn’t believe it!”
In many cases, Betty’s quilt is the only piece of art a family will have. When babies grow up, mothers find other ways of using them: hanging them on walls, spreading them on beds, or using them as mats under Christmas trees. The grown babies do not always like this. “My son says, but that quilt is mine,” laughs Ramona. “And I say, no, it is mine now.”
Betty is tickled to hear this. She knows her quilts have been appreciated, but she had not understood just how much. Though she is having some trouble breathing on the day she’s filled in, she brightens with each comment, finally even giggling again. Our gifts can matter more than we realize. It feels so good to give them. To receive them. To work in community to create a better future for ourselves and our kids.
“Betty is the spirit of Nido,” said Holly. “Nido is hope. It is possibility. It is a liminal space where you can see what humanity is capable of.”