Accompanied by Family

The story of women's lineage can be told by a quilt

The Family Quilt

The family patchwork quilt that has been passed down to me after five generations has several versions in the family lore, the backstory changes depending on teller. I’ve done some research to find out that Turkey red ink became available in the 1850s, and with cotton fabric and ink innovations, such that the red dye did not run, red and white quilts became a popular style, and remain in vogue today. Search ‘red and white quilts’ and you’ll see! Add ‘vintage friendship’ quilts to the search, and this is where my quilt gets interesting.

My quilt is called a friendship quilt. Friends and family stitched their name on a quilt patch, and then the quilters assemble the patches into various patterns. Mine is a checkerboard style. Upon searching, there are many intricate and beautiful variations. I had no idea about quilting. It has been an adventure of its own to learn about the history of quilting. There are several museums dedicated to preserving history in the form of quilts.

My red and white signature quilt certainly is a significant piece of early Canadian settlers’ - women’s crafts, a record of neighbors and family, and a testament to my own family’s care for a blanket that was created 113 years ago. It’s been treasured in the family for over a century. The red and white friendship quilt is made of 270 (18 x 15 rectangles)  hand stitched patches, each patch has a persons’ signature - it fits on top of narrow double bed. One of the patches documents the date, January 1911.

The Quilt fits on a narrow double bed

The Family Legend

The family legend can be validated by looking at my quilt for clues. There are signatures with first and last names, the town and state. Each signature represents the family and friends they left behind; several large family clans are represented, some of the surnames I am familiar with from my childhood. My family came to Canada with other families who originally farmed in Illinois or other American states, when the western provinces were joining Canada’s Confederation, in the early 1900s. My grandfather’s name, a baby of the family that settled in Canada, is stitched in also.

Unclear from family lore is how many quilts were made. Different stories and sources suggest there were more than one blankets made. Did a duplicate quilt remain with family in Illinois? Were there actually four quilts, distributed among four families of those women who stitched the patches? Was the quilt created by Malinda’s daughter and given to Malinda as a going away gift, or was the quilt initiated by Malinda herself to take with her? It is clear from the quilt itself and the bit of research, that the friendship quilts are constructed by a group of women; it’s a lot of work. And a lot of love is stitched into the material.

The signatures and stitch styles are unique, so it may be assumed that each person stitched their own, or a group of women sewed over the original signatures. Personally, knowing how much effort this quilt must have taken, just to sew one blanket, I find it hard to imagine the four quilts version of the lore. But maybe? It is plausible that there is a duplicate. Sewing one for the Canadian farm and one to remain at the Illinois farm seems more likely.

A Woman’s Story

These questions stirred up my imagination as I tried to understand the ‘how-to’ of quilting. I can see several women sitting together in the winters, over a century ago, stitching this quilt. Some preparing to leave their homes, others willing to stay behind. This quilt is what unites them to each other, and unites me to them.

My uncle and my dad’s cousin collaborated on a family tree effort in Ancestry about the same time as my interest in the quilt research. Our ancestors originally came from England and Scotland to the New World when America was becoming the United States. We are an unbroken line of centuries of farmers and settlers.

One thing led to another and my story was born!

In the beginning of my writing project, I stuck closely to the family biography, which satisfied my personal need to know more about my family lineage. By the end, though, everything is fictional. The main character is based on my great-great grandmother, Malinda and is a creation from my imagination of what it might have been like for her.

The historical fiction is titled “Wide as the Sky.” It is a story, set in 1905, of a woman’s experience as the family begins farming in the Canadian prairies. Malinda steps into a new world, as she wonders at the marvel of the frontier.

Periodically, I will post another story about my experience as I wrote this novel.

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