Elm Creek Quilts [04] The Runaway Quilt (23 page)

“Yes, intensely negative. Don’t you remember what Mr. Pearson wrote in the Creek’s Crossing newspaper? How could an Abolitionist like Gerda marry someone like that?”

Summer shrugged, uncomfortable. “Remember that Jonathan and Dorothea were the ones who first introduced Gerda to the Abolitionist movement. They betrayed Gerda. Maybe in anger she turned against everything they believed in.”

“I don’t accept that.” Sylvia frowned and shook her head. “Remember, she was writing in 1895, so she knows how things turned out, even if we don’t. There would have been some sign of it in her memoir.”

“You’re right. It was just a thought. Anyway, it turned out not to mean anything, because I couldn’t find a record for them.”

“And thank goodness for that,” declared Sylvia, as if that put an end to the matter.

But in her heart she knew the question was far from settled. Sylvia’s mother had written a comment in the Bible that could mean that she was uncertain of Gerda’s married name, unsure whether she had married at all, or both. Cyrus Pearson and his mother had apparently expressed interest in moving to the South. If they had done so, and Gerda had left Elm Creek Farm
to marry Cyrus, she might have made a quilt in memory of the home and family she had left behind . . .

No. Quickly Sylvia closed her mind to such thoughts. Even in her disappointment, Gerda would not have turned her back on her principles. Sylvia would not believe it, despite the many inconsistencies and questions a marriage between Gerda and Cyrus would explain.

Sylvia closed the book and shut it firmly away in her desk drawer. If Gerda had married Cyrus, Sylvia would rather not know.

8

If Sylvia’s friends noticed she left the memoir untouched the rest of the day, they said nothing about it. Only Andrew mentioned the book, when he reminded Sylvia to pack it for an extended weekend trip to Door County, Wisconsin. They were well into Ohio before Andrew suggested she read aloud from it as he drove, and when Sylvia told him she had left it at home, he merely nodded and turned on the radio instead. Sylvia didn’t tell him she had left it behind on purpose, but she suspected he knew.

They spent two days in Sturgeon Bay, where they enjoyed a traditional fish boil and boating on Lake Michigan as the guests of one of Andrew’s army buddies and his wife. Then they drove north and west to a campsite overlooking Green Bay, not far from the quaint shops and charming restaurants of Egg Harbor and Fish Creek. Andrew persuaded Sylvia to join him on a tandem bicycle for a jaunt through Peninsula State Park. Sylvia half feared she was in for a teeth-chattering ramble over rocky hiking trails, but Andrew knew all the paved routes from previous
visits and only occasionally made her shriek with alarm by steering too close to a tree.

They woke Tuesday morning to the sound of rain pattering on the motor home’s roof, but they did not mind the change in the weather, since they had planned to head back that day anyway. Only as they crossed the Illinois border did Sylvia feel melancholy creeping into her thoughts. Although every bit of the heat and humidity felt like summer, the northern Wisconsin forest they had left behind had already begun changing into autumnal hues. She didn’t like the reminder that within weeks summer would soon end, and Elm Creek Quilt Camp would conclude for the season. Although Sylvia wasn’t as involved with the day-to-day operations as she had once been, she would miss the campers’ presence, and the way they filled her home with their laughter and energy.

Andrew spread the drive home to Waterford over three days, giving them plenty of time for sight-seeing along the way. They pulled into the parking lot behind the manor just in time for supper on Thursday evening. In honor of their return, all the Elm Creek Quilters stayed for the meal. It was almost like old times again, back when their business was new, when each day of camp presented unexpected challenges and they were never quite sure if they would survive until the campers left after breakfast on Saturday. Back then they had assured one another that eventually they would fall into a smooth, well-functioning routine, but now that they had, Sylvia occasionally felt nostalgic for the odd calamity that forced them to create solutions out of little more than inspiration and hope.

After supper, she agreed to act as master of ceremonies for the campers’ talent show. Of all the evening entertainment programs, this was Sylvia’s favorite, for it allowed her guests to express their interests beyond quilting. The shows never failed to be highly entertaining, with musical acts, skits, and other performances
that defied classification, delivered with widely varying degrees of talent and polish. New campers put together their acts on the spot, while veterans of previous years often prepared ahead of time. Four members of a quilting guild from Des Moines dramatized a scene from
Little Women,
while three veteran campers, who had discovered a shared interest in the accordion at last year’s camp, brought their instruments and performed a medley of Bach cantatas. Best of all, however, was a new camper whose gift for mimicry rendered them helpless with laughter at her impersonations of some of the camp’s more vivid personalities. The evening was the best welcome-home present Sylvia could have imagined.

But the talent show was not all that had awaited her.

When she finally bid her friends good night, kissed Andrew, and retired to her room, she found her mail stacked neatly on her bedside dresser. She crawled into bed, snuggled beneath her blue and gold LeMoyne Star quilt, and thumbed through the envelopes. A return address from South Carolina caught her eye, and she realized it was a letter from Margaret Alden.

Apprehensive, Sylvia set the other letters aside and opened the envelope.

August 13, 2001

Dear Sylvia,

I hope this letter finds you and your friend Andrew well. Your program for the Silver Lake Quilters’ Guild received rave reviews. We all hope you’ll consider returning someday to share more of your quilts with us.

Since we spoke that evening, I’ve increased my efforts to learn more about the Elm Creek Quilt. While I still haven’t conclusively determined who made it, I have learned a few details about its history that I thought might interest you.

My aunt Mary, my mother’s younger sister, says she believes
the quilt was completed shortly before the War of Secession began. This would follow what my mother told me, that during the war itself, the women of the family rarely made any new quilts, but made do with what they had. They could no longer obtain fabric from the Northern mills, and since Southern cotton gins and textile mills were frequently attacked as military targets, thread sometimes became scarce. Eventually they resorted to spinning their own thread on a spinning wheel and conserving it for the most necessary sewing projects, such as blankets, bandages, and other items for the soldiers.

According to my aunt, it’s something of a miracle the quilt survived the war at all. The plantation was frequently overrun by troops from both sides, depending upon who controlled the territory at the time, and the soldiers scavenged food and supplies from people whose resources were already scarce. Sometimes the troops offered receipts for what they took, but more often they did not, though there was little likelihood of redeeming the receipts, anyway.

In order to protect their valuables, my grandmother’s grand-mother hid the family silver and other heirlooms under her daughter’s mattress. When the family heard soldiers arriving, her daughter would dash upstairs, climb into bed, and pull the Birds in the Air quilt over herself. Then she would groan and toss about as if suffering from some terrible illness, while her mother pretended to care for her. When the soldiers entered the house and were told that the daughter was afflicted with typhus, they would not enter the room. My grandmother’s grandmother made sure to leave items of lesser value elsewhere in the house, so the soldiers would not suspect they had a hidden cache, and grow angry and destructive at the prospect of leaving empty-handed.

This scheme preserved their property for nearly the entire duration of the war, but when their region was finally overwhelmed
by Federal troops, the family was forced to flee. They took what they could carry and bundled the rest in the Birds of the Air quilt, which they buried on their property. Previous attempts to hide their valuables had taught them that scavenging soldiers knew to look for recently overturned soil, so again my grandmother’s grandmother devised a deception. She placed the quilt at the bottom of a deep hole, covered it up with several feet of dirt, then on top laid the remains of her beloved dog, which had been shot only days earlier by a scavenger. After filling in the hole, she remarked that her faithful friend was a loyal guardian for the family even in death.

When they finally were able to return to the plantation months later, they found most of the house an utter ruin. The soil over the hiding place had been disturbed, but their valuables were still there at the bottom of the hole. Whoever had searched the site in their absence must have struck the dog’s bones and decided they had found only a grave, and gone no further.

I think this at least partially accounts for the quilt’s dilapidated condition, wouldn’t you agree? It certainly explains the water stains in the middle of the top row.

When I told my aunt it was a shame they buried the quilt, though, she told me that was the only reason the quilt remained within the family at all. When they fled their home, they took the fancier quilts with them, including a broderie perse wedding quilt and a whole-cloth trapunto coverlet they used only for company. At some point during their flight, they were robbed on the road, and the thieves took the quilts along with everything else. So only because the Elm Creek Quilt had been considered utilitarian rather than fine did it survive the war—and if you ask me, those fancy silk quilts wouldn’t have survived burial as well as the Birds in the Air quilt did, with its sturdy linsey-woolsey and muslin. I wonder, though, if those two stolen quilts became some other family’s heirlooms. More likely they were used as
horse blankets or cut up to patch worn shoes. It’s unlikely a thief would appreciate all the time, effort, and affection that went into those quilts.

I hope this new information will shed more light on the history of the Elm Creek Quilt, although we must keep in mind that it’s only as accurate as my aunt Mary’s memory of old family stories. Why didn’t more women document their quilts with a tag or at least their signature? I suppose they never imagined the frustrations they were creating for their descendants.

Please keep me posted about your own research. I’m eager to hear from you, whether you have good news or bad, or no news at all.

Sincerely,
Margaret Alden

Sylvia read the letter a second time, then folded it carefully and returned it to its envelope. Why, indeed, didn’t women document each and every quilt they made? As the Alden family story proved, sometimes the everyday quilts rather than the painstakingly stitched masterpieces were the ones to endure for future generations.

But of course, quilters didn’t often think their creations deserved documentation. In Sylvia’s opinion, they valued themselves—and the work of their hands—too lightly. If a quilt was worthy of the thread that held it together, it was surely worthy of a simple appliquéd tag identifying the quilter, her geographic location, and the date of completion. More details would be even better, but Sylvia would settle for those.

She placed Margaret’s letter on top of the others and returned the stack to the top of her dresser, then switched off the light and settled into bed. She closed her eyes and tried to still her thoughts, but images from the Birds in the Air quilt’s perilous journey through the years played in her mind.

Suddenly a phrase from the letter jolted her memory. Quickly Sylvia groped for the lamp switch and snatched up the letter and her glasses. She scanned the lines until she reached the third to the last paragraph, where she spotted the familiar words. Linsey-woolsey. Grace had mentioned that type of fabric years ago in one of her lectures. Sylvia could not remember the exact context, but she knew it was significant.