Ellen Ahlgren was nearly 70 when she learned of the many infants with HIV confined to New York City hospitals. Saddened by those lonely babies, she got a few friends together to make them quilts.

"Her heart just went out to them, those poor little things in the hospital," said daughter Janet Ahlgren. "She said, wouldn't it be nice if they just had a little blankie they could call their own."

It was 1988, and the stigma of AIDS was so fresh that the elderly women struggled to find a hospital ready to admit it housed patients. But from a modest start in Northwood, ABC Quilts grew over two decades into an international network that reported delivering more than a million quilts to babies at risk.

Family and friends will gather tomorrow to remember Ahlgren, who died of pancreatic cancer April 18 in a Concord hospice. She was 90.

"She was just a dream of a woman," said Dorris Haddock, aka Granny D, a close friend of Ahlgren for nearly 70 years. Haddock also gained fame late in life, setting out at age 89 to walk

across the United States for campaign finance reform. Now 99 ("and a half"), Granny D testified recently before the Illinois legislature.

Equipped with an appealing concept, Ahlgren promoted At-risk Babies Crib Quilts with passion. She approached the Rev. Douglas Theuner, then the Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire and heavily involved in AIDS work, and received additional space in Northwood. She oversaw the group's incorporation as a nonprofit and raised money, winning the support of Newman's Own Foundation. And she engaged news media outlets such as Newsweek and Good Morning America to report on the quilt project, Janet Ahlgren said.

Theuner said his friend was never put off by resistance to talking about HIV and AIDS.

"She wouldn't be put off by the stigma," he said. "That would only reinforce her interest in going ahead and dealing with the problem."

As word spread, people would send in quilts made at schools, civic groups, houses of worship and prisons. The organization expanded its focus to infants affected by drug abuse, and Ellen and Janet Ahlgren authored a book teaching children about decision making and consequences.

Her strategy, Janet Ahlgren said, was: "I'll just ask. If I don't ask, they certainly won't say yes."

Ellen Ahlgren estimated a year ago that more than a million quilts had been inspired by her project. Though the formal organization disbanded a few years ago, she continued to receive letters about its impact: about little children who clutched their quilts throughout each painful procedure, about the prisoner who returned home to find his own daughter wrapped in a quilt she'd made, about babies buried in their quilts after they died.

"When I think of it now, I don't know how it all worked," Ahlgren told the Monitor last year. "When it's a bad situation, I think people really want to help. This was something they could do. I think that's why it was so successful."

Ahlgren was born in Manchester in December 1918 and grew up in the city. She graduated from Manchester High School and studied home economics at Nasson College in Maine before returning in the summer of 1941 to work for the National Youth Administration. She was trying to make friends that summer when she was set up on a picnic date with Clarence Ahlgren, then working for the city waterworks and living in the home of Haddock and her husband.

Ellen Ahlgren wrote later in life how she enjoyed her suitor's friendship but planned to postpone marriage in favor of her career. That only piqued his interest.

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