The sight of a tattered American flag makes 91-year-old Diane Mott shudder. Several years ago, she decided to do something about it. Mott began volunteering to repair old flags flying outside local businesses.
“I would go in and say, ‘I can fix it. Take it down,’” Mott recalled. Over the past several years, she said, she’s rehabbed around 10 flags.
Last Thursday, Mott invited Seven Days into her apartment at the Residence at Otter Creek in Middlebury, where a flag boasting 48 stars, likely around 100 years old, was draped over her couch, waiting to be picked up by a local homeowner. Mott had used her shiny black vintage Singer Featherweight sewing machine to affix long, off-white pieces of fabric over the torn stripes. She prefers old sewing machines to newfangled ones, she said, though finding replacement parts can be tricky.
Mott moved to Addison County in 1949, when her father bought the Blueberry Hill ski area in Goshen. She learned to sew at a young age from her mother and grandmother, who was a dress designer in New York City. After attending Middlebury College, she worked as a state social worker and helped alter and mend clothing for the Marble Valley Players, a Rutland-area theater group. She kept the Players’ expansive collection of costumes in her Goshen barn.
Mott said she isn’t a fan of the current presidential administration and has even participated in protests of President Donald Trump, but that doesn’t stop her from feeling a strong sense of national pride.
“It’s America,” Mott said. “We should pay attention to the fact that, most of the time, we do good things for our neighbors, for people that come into our country.”
Mott is planning to celebrate the country’s 250th birthday next month in style: by driving her orange 1973 Volkswagen van in Brandon’s Independence Day parade.
The original print version of this article was headlined “On the Mend”
This article appears in June 24 • 2026.
Got something to say?
Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!
