Why does celie charish the quilt she and Sofia made in the color purple?

Because in the traditional Old South to show respect to a woman, often by someone younger, the elder was always addressed as "Miss". We were taught as children to address adult women as Miss Ginger or Miss Scarlet. We did this at church and with our mother's friends. Depending on where I am now geographically or which group of friends I am with, this is still practiced. My family origins were Mississippi from the turn of the 19th century. I was born in the early 1960s. This really is not a race conotation. This is a Southern tradition. It may have originally come from how a servant was to address a person of gentry. But it continued long after servitude ended.