Hello and welcome Mary!
I started quilting when I was 17 and a senior in high school, that was some 40 years ago now. I don't come from a quilting tradition, it was just something I wanted to do and was rather intimidated by the little old quilting ladies -- one of which I have become
We are nothing to fear and I think most of us are delighted to have beginners of all ages.
I hope you are able to find a group, some things are so much easier to simply show than try and describe, but we have some great people on this board who do their best. In my own small group, at 58 I'm the baby of the group, closer to daughter age than the rest of the group.