Teodora Girvickaite (1898-1987) immigrated from Lithuania with her brother Tadas in 1912. They first settled in Idaho working as laborers in a glue factory, where 14-year-old Teodora lied and said she was 16 so that she could meet the age minimum. She later came to Seattle and continued to work a series of difficult, low-paying jobs, even after her brother returned to Lithuania when the country gained independence. She eventually married Polish Russian immigrant Fred Halam and Americanized her first name to Dorothy. In the 1950s, members of her extended family came to United States as refugees from the Soviet Union takeover of Lithuania. Dorothy was often cold to them, baffled that they would leave the worker’s paradise she imagined under Soviet rule, and still carrying bitterness from the horrible working conditions she had endured in America. In 1961 she visited Soviet Lithuania for the first and was surprised by the real conditions behind the Iron Curtain. The cover for this cushion was acquired during that trip, and the hand-woven geometric Lithuanian design was proudly displayed in her home. Years later, when she was moved into assisted living, one of her relatives saved the cushion. When they unstitched the cover to remove the inner pillow, there was a shocking discovery: a red cushion embroidered with a large Communist hammer and sickle.