A Quilter's Holiday: An Elm Creek Quilts Novel (11 page)

Sylvia wondered if those quilts still graced a cozy home somewhere in California or whether, like so many other heirlooms created from fabric and thread, they had been lost to time. A few months before, inspired by the success of other searches into her family’s past, Sylvia had enlisted the help of Summer Sullivan, the official historian and Internet guru of Elm Creek Quilts, and Grace Daniels, a longtime friend, quilter,
and museum curator. When Sylvia told them how she longed to discover what had become of her cousin, Summer offered to search her favorite genealogy databases for the Nelson family, while Grace took on the more daunting challenge of attempting to find Elizabeth’s quilts. Elizabeth would never have parted with such precious wedding gifts, and if they had not worn out or suffered another sad fate, she surely would have passed them down to her children. If the quilts were found, their provenance could trace a path back to Triumph Ranch and Elizabeth.

While Summer worked online, Grace contacted all the quilt museums, appraisers, historians, and private collectors she knew in Southern California. Unfortunately, even though Sylvia had provided sketches of the quilts, the Chimneys and Cornerstones block was so common that the prospect of finding one particular scrap rendition seemed impossible. The Double Wedding Ring pattern had also been popular for more than a century, but the floral appliqués set Elizabeth’s version apart, perhaps distinguishing it enough to fix it in a viewer’s memory. On this slight chance, Sylvia had pinned her hopes.

Grace had spared her the day-by-day account of the false leads traced and disproved, but then, the day after Halloween, she had phoned with intriguing news. A colleague had shown Sylvia’s sketches to a friend at UCLA who specialized in Southern California history. He was convinced that he had
seen the floral Double Wedding Ring quilt in a book about the development of coastal stagecoach routes, but he couldn’t remember the title.

“How many books on that subject can there be?” Sylvia had asked Grace, who laughed and said that she suspected there weren’t many, which gave them an advantage. One of the UCLA professor’s graduate students was writing a dissertation on the subject, and he was certain he had seen the photo while helping her prepare for her candidacy exam. He promised that he would have the student page through the books in question and locate the photo as soon as possible, but it was a busy semester and they might not get to it right away.

“I understand,” Sylvia had said, and she asked Grace to offer the professor and his student her heartfelt thanks. “But remind them that I’m a senior citizen and I can’t wait forever.”

“Sylvia!” Grace had scolded, bursting into laughter. “You’re as fit as a woman half your age.”

“Hardly,” Sylvia had said dryly. “And don’t tell your friend that. Let him think time is of the essence.”

Grace had agreed, and as Sylvia had hung up the phone, she had felt a flutter of cautious anticipation, a familiar sensation she remembered from her search for five of her mother’s long-lost heirloom quilts that Sylvia’s sister had sold off decades earlier. In the quest for a missing quilt, fresh leads often appeared when one least expected them, but sometimes the
answers, once finally discovered, proved disappointing. Sylvia had prepared herself to expect the same from this new quest. The quilt from the photograph might not be Elizabeth’s at all, and even if it were, the trail might end there, with its appearance in an obscure academic text.

Sylvia finished the last seam, tied a knot in the thread, and snipped the trailing end. Then she smoothed the Star of the Magi block on her lap and inspected it critically. The eight-pointed star in the center lay perfectly flat, seams carefully pressed in a spiral on the back to eliminate an unsightly lump where the diamonds met. The eight irregular pentagons that pointed outward from the central star enhanced the design’s radiance. The unusual shapes and angles lent themselves to hand piecing, but now that the blocks were complete, Sylvia intended to assemble the top by machine to save time. If Diane were there to see Sylvia embark upon the next stage, she would have given Sylvia an earful for mixing hand and machine piecing in the same quilt top, an inconsistency she abhorred.

Sylvia would have gladly endured her protests to have Diane there, safe and sound in the manor rather than fighting her way home in a snowstorm that seemed to have intensified since her departure.

She must have sighed aloud, for Agnes caught her eye and smiled encouragingly. “Whatever flaws you think you’ve found, I assure you, you’re imagining them.”

“Oh, the block is fine.” Sylvia rose and brushed stray
threads from her lap. “I simply don’t relish crawling about on my hands and knees as I arrange the blocks into rows.” That was certainly true, so it wasn’t a lie, although it wasn’t the reason for her troubled sigh either.

“Is this quilt your annual contribution to the Holiday Boutique?”

“Why, yes,” said Sylvia, all innocence. “Would you like to place a bid?”

“And deny your fellow parishioners the chance to own one of your masterpieces? And deny
you
the pleasure of watching the bidding go higher and higher?” Agnes feigned horror at the very thought. “I couldn’t live with myself.”

Sylvia smiled and gathered up her pile of completed blocks, her worries about Diane momentarily subsiding. Agnes knew her too well. It was perhaps a sin of pride to take so much delight in knowing that she never failed to provide one of the most sought-after items for her church’s annual sale, but since the proceeds went to a noble cause, she figured she would be forgiven. “It’s not for myself that I want my donations to fetch a good price,” she reminded her sister-in-law, “but for the county food bank. You know the proceeds from the boutique provide almost a third of their annual budget.”

Gretchen looked up from her work, impressed. “That must be quite a sale.”

“Or quite a small budget,” said Gwen with a naughty grin.

“It would be wonderful indeed if the food bank required
only a small budget, but the need is greater than that,” said Agnes. “People don’t go hungry only in the big cities but also in rural towns like ours, especially in times like these, when even working families are struggling to make ends meet.”

“Preachin’ to the choir, darlin’,” said Gwen with a trace of her old Kentucky accent. “I give my undergrads extra credit if they volunteer to sort donations at the food bank.”

“Can you do that?” asked Carol, concern cutting a furrow between her brows. “Is that fair to the students who don’t have time to volunteer?”

“I firmly believe that every college student can find a spare hour once a week,” said Gwen. “They may have to cut back on their beer bong time, but they can do it. Anyway, I don’t give them enough extra credit to change a failing grade to passing, but it’s enough to make the difference between a B-plus and an A-minus. I’ve also found that once young people start volunteering and learn how good it feels to contribute to the community, they often continue on their own and draw their friends into it, even without the reward of a better grade dangled in front of them.”

“Can anyone donate a quilt for the boutique?” asked Gretchen, admiring Sylvia’s quilt with keen interest. “Or is it members only?”

“I don’t think participation is restricted to church members, and in any case I can’t imagine they’d turn down one of your lovely creations,” said Sylvia. “The Holiday Boutique isn’t
limited to quilts either, but all manner of handmade gifts, jewelry, Christmas ornaments, knitted scarves, baked goods—”

“Baked goods?” Anna broke in from the cutting table. “In that case I could probably whip up something, too.”

“I’m sure the committee chair will be delighted,” said Sylvia, pleased. “I don’t know why I never thought to ask you for donations before.”

“A better question is why we never volunteered,” said Gwen, eyes on her needle as she worked it through the layers held fast in her hoop. “Anna and Gretchen have a good excuse since they didn’t join us until recently, but the rest of us have watched you work on quilts for the boutique on every quilter’s holiday year after year, and yet we never thought to ask if we could pitch in.”

“I’m sure you all support your own favorite charities,” said Sylvia. Gretchen promptly nodded and Gwen shrugged as if that went without saying, but Sarah allowed the sewing machine to stop its cheerful patter and the rest exchanged contrite glances. “Well, if you haven’t in the past I hope you’ll consider it in the future.”

“Who has time to take on another task during the holidays?” said Carol, but she looked as if she regretted her words even as she spoke them.

“What better time than the holidays?” asked Sylvia. Using one’s gifts in the service of others and caring for those in need
figured so prominently in the Bergstrom family’s Christmas traditions that Sylvia couldn’t imagine the holidays without them. Her mother had set an admirable example, teaching her children that they were called not to give from their surplus, but to give their all. Sylvia had often thought that the Elm Creek Quilters should do more as a group to lend their talents to worthy causes, but she had never found a moment to sit down and plan a project for the entire circle of quilters. Until Sylvia could get herself organized, she must do more to encourage her friends to support worthy causes on their own, leading by example as her mother would have done.

“As Gwen said, it feels good to contribute to the community.” Sylvia carried her blocks to an open spot on the parquet dance floor and began to arrange them medallion fashion, starting with the center blocks and working outward to the edges. “Especially in this season of giving. We’re all very busy, but we should never become too preoccupied with our own concerns to help those in need.”

“Hear, hear,” said Gwen, shifting in her chair and unfurling the quilt so that the soft folds draped over the armrest. The floral Augusta blocks had been carefully pieced, each triangle tapering to a perfect point, but the quilt’s soft colors and traditional setting were so unlike Gwen’s more avant-garde creations that Sylvia had to smile at the incongruous sight. It occurred to her that in finishing her friend’s quilt in time for
Christmas, Gwen, too, was helping someone in need in that season of giving. Not all needs were material, and some worthy causes were as close as one’s own circle of friends.

Sylvia had benefited from the generous gifts of her friends’ time and talents more often than she could count. If not for Grace and Summer, she never would have learned so much about her heritage, and thanks to their tireless efforts on her behalf, she stood to learn more.

How Summer had found time away from her graduate school studies to investigate historical records for her, Sylvia had no idea, although Summer had always been an admirably capable young woman. Only a week before, she had called the manor with startling news: She had discovered census records from 1930 for a Nelson family living in the Arboles Valley.

“The names seem to fit, but other details don’t,” Summer had said, with an odd note in her voice that could have been puzzlement or caution or both, as if something about the evidence made her suspect it might disappoint Sylvia. “There’s no mention of Triumph Ranch, for one thing, but the census form doesn’t really have a place for the names of individual farms. Did you have any relatives named Jorgensen?”

“Not that I recall,” Sylvia had said, “unless they’re distant relations by marriage. Why do you ask?”

“You’ll understand when you see the forms.”

Summer had promised to put them in the mail that afternoon,
and sure enough, they had arrived a few days later. Sylvia’s excitement gave way to uncertainty as she opened the envelope and studied the first page, a printout from a microfilm taken of the original government documents. Two-thirds of the way down the page she discovered Henry Nelson, a twenty-seven-year-old white male, born in Pennsylvania as his parents before him had been. Living with him was his wife, Elizabeth, age twenty-six and also from Pennsylvania, and their two-year-old daughter, Eleanor, born in California. The names, birthdates, and birthplaces were a perfect match for Sylvia’s cousin and her family, but not only was the name
Triumph Ranch
absent, Henry was not even listed as head of the household. That title went to Oscar Jorgensen, a California-born farmer married to Mary Katherine Jorgensen, the mother of his two daughters. Other members of the household included Oscar Jorgensen’s mother and a number of men identified as hired hands. Henry was listed as the last of these, his relation to the head of household noted as
lodger
and his occupation as
foreman
. Like the other adult women on the page, Elizabeth had no occupation listed, as if the census taker had considered their roles as wives and homemakers so obvious that he need not record it.

This Elizabeth had to be Sylvia’s long-lost cousin, her daughter Eleanor the namesake of Sylvia’s mother, but how could Henry be lodger and foreman rather than landowner and rancher? At first Sylvia had wondered if Henry had lost
the ranch in the onset of the Great Depression and had stayed on as the new owner’s employee, but a second form Summer had included quickly disproved her theory. A printout of the census from 1920, five years before Elizabeth and Henry moved to California, indisputably proved that the land had belonged to the Jorgensen family even then.

Gradually, almost against her will, Sylvia had come to accept the inescapable truth: She had not found Triumph Ranch because there had never been such a place. Henry had spent his life savings on it and had carried the documents of sale around in his coat pocket as a talisman for months leading up to his wedding, but despite Elizabeth’s cheerful accounts to the contrary, the newlyweds had not settled down to a happy and prosperous life as the owners of a thriving cattle ranch. Sylvia could only imagine what misfortune had befallen the couple, but it surely explained Elizabeth’s silence.

After pondering the census forms and the mystery of Elizabeth’s long-held secret, Sylvia had called Summer to thank her and to ask her to find her cousin’s family in the 1940 census. Perhaps over the decades their fortunes had improved. To her disappointment, Summer had told her that census forms fell under a seventy-two-year privacy law, so the 1940 census records would not be released to the public until 2012. “That doesn’t mean we’ve hit a dead end,” Summer had added. “We may find other sources with much of the same information. Voter registration lists, public directories, county
court records—but that would probably require a trip to the Arboles Valley and some digging through primary sources.”