Carolyn Souza first learned to knit when she was in the Girl Scouts in Truro, where she grew up. “We all knitted little squares,” she says. Then all the girls’ squares were sewn together by their troop leader to become a blanket to be sent to an Army base in Europe. That was during World War II.
When she was newly married, still living in Truro, Souza learned from a neighbor how to move beyond knitting mere squares to making sweaters, socks, hats, and shawls. She knitted for her family, but also for a sprawling network of neighbors, friends, and friends of friends. Her neighbor’s husband worked at the former North Truro Air Force Station on Old Dewline Road, Souza recalls, so military folks remained among the beneficiaries of her growing talent.
Truro residents who go way back might have met Souza during her teenage years. She worked at one of the most popular spots in Truro, Babe’s Bakery, selling their famous custard pies. Later, she worked in Provincetown at the Hallmark store on Commercial Street across from Adams Pharmacy. “People called me the Hallmark lady,” she says.
But knitting is still Souza’s way of spreading love and warmth.
Now living in Eastham, Souza knits a tiny beanie nearly every day, packing her work as she goes into a large cardboard box. When she fills a box, she sends it off to Warm Up America!, a national nonprofit based in Texas that gathers the work of knitters — squares, entire blankets, and clothing — to be given to people in need. She can’t remember who told her about the organization, but Souza says she has been sending hats their way pretty much since it was founded, three decades ago.
The hats Souza knits are needed in newborn intensive care units (known as NICUs) for premature babies who cannot yet regulate body temperature well and lose heat very quickly through their heads. Many of Souza’s beanies go to babies at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, near Warm Up’s headquarters; it has the largest NICU in that region, caring for some 100 newborns a month. But she also occasionally drives to Cape Cod Hospital to donate some of her hats to newborns here on the Cape.
Souza’s four number-six needles clack their way through two to four skeins of yarn a week. She chooses soft acrylics because they can be even softer than cotton and are easy to wash and dry. What about wool? “It’s too scratchy,” she says.
And she doesn’t order yarn online. Instead, Souza heads to Ocean Purls on Route 6 in Eastham to pick them out in person. “I like to buy locally, to support the people right here,” she says. She leans towards pinks, blues, whites, and yellows for the beanies — though she does stray to other colors when she decides to knit new socks for neighbors.
Souza’s neighbor Celeste Hanlon marvels at Souza’s project. “It’s a true labor of love,” she says, “but the hats are not all she does. Everyone on our road has at least one pair of Carolyn’s socks, and she bakes cookies and muffins for all of us, too.”
“It’s kind of selfish of me, maybe, but it makes me feel good when I get a smile out of somebody,” Souza says. She admits to stopping teenage girls in the street to hand them knitted bands for their hair. “It tickles them pink, and me, too.”
