2,000 and counting: Fall River woman sews homemade masks for anyone who needs one

FALL RIVER -- When 80-year-old Eva Smith started seeing people getting sick in the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, along with concerning shortages of personal protection masks, she started sewing.

And since April, she has produced nearly 2,000 cloth face masks that she’s been handing out for free to her North End neighbors and anyone else who happens by in need of a mask.

“So I was thinking about it and I knew everyone needs a mask and I was sure I could do it. So I had a dresser drawer full of scraps from projects over the years, so I had plenty of cloth and I got some elastic and a pattern and I haven’t stopped,” said Smith.

A few times a week Smith puts a little white table on her front lawn with an assortment of colorful masks for adults and a basket full of smaller ones for children.

Inside her garage rows of different patterned cloth masks are neatly stacked at the ready to be given away. She’s already started sewing her Christmas-themed mask wear.

Smith has been sewing all her life and worked as a seamstress for a number of companies in Fall River doing piece work for nearly 50 years.

Some days Smith is up at 7 a.m. at her sewing machine, which is now located in her living room.

“Depending on how I feel, there are some days I can work all day until 9 at night and I’ll work day after day after day. Then maybe I’ll take three or four days to rest and then I’ll start again,” said Smith. “But it’s always on my mind. I told my neighbors I’m going to keep doing it as long as people keep taking them.”

Smith and her daughter, Sue Chicca, admit it has become her obsession.

Smith said she can produce about a dozen masks a day, “if I keep at it.”

“It’s really good because I’ll talk to her on the phone and she’s excited because she just put out new masks. It keeps her engaged with the world. I’m so grateful she has this,” said Chicca.

While Smith doesn’t expect any compensation and purchases the materials with her own money and sometimes there have been donations.

She was even surprised when a neighbor she’d never met before she started offering the home sewn masks clean out what she called “a mess” of yard waste left by workers who had installed a sewer line abutting her property.

“He said this isn’t just from me, it’s from all your neighbors. I get refrigerator drawings from kids,” said Smith

Another time, Smith looked out her window and saw a deliveryman from Edible Arrangements stop outside her yard and next thing she knew there was large bunch of balloons tied to her doorstep.

Smith was convinced the deliveryman had the wrong address.

“He said 'Is your name Eva?' I said yes. He had the right address,” said Smith.

The balloon bouquet came with a heartfelt note from a neighboring family.

Sometimes Smith will find a $5 bill tucked in the masks on her table and other times people drop off cloth to help her with her mask making.

When Smith’s stock of masks is in abundance, Smith has donated them to her senior center and a day care.

This week, on only her second excursion to Shaw’s Market since the pandemic hit the region, Smith went shopping with her grandson. Standing at the deli she said she saw an older gentleman with what she described as a big, ugly red neckerchief around his face.

“I had some extra ones in my bag,” said Smith who offered one to the man.

“I said 'Would you like a homemade cloth mask?'”

He did and offered her money, which Smith refused.

Standing in her driveway on Thursday afternoon a gray minivan drives slowly by and stops. A blonde woman walks out and greets Smith.

Cassie Patriarca of Tiverton said she was down the street visiting her grandmother when she mentioned she was running out of masks for her and her husband and two young children. Her grandmother directed Patriarca to Smith’s house.

Patriarca, who insisted Smith take a donation,  is impressed that Smith has sewn nearly 2,000 masks since April.

“Holy cow, oh my gosh, that’s unbelievable and their beautiful,” said Patriarca. “What a gift.”

Email Jo C. Goode at jgoode@heraldnews.com