Saving Memories

Quilts Ladies of the Helping Hand Society working on quilt, Gage County, Nebraska, October 1938.      John Vachon, photographer    "Well it must have been quite a surprise to you to get such a quilt. It looks as though some one else thought something of you as well as me, but you ought not to have told me about any of the mens names that were on it for I might get jealous you know but I will forgive them this time and thank them to boot, and all the Dear Ladies too & we'll try and think of all of them when we sleep under it."      Letter from Uriah Oblinger to wife Mattie and daughter Ella, April 12-18, 1873. Quilts came to Nebraska with the earliest settlers and from territorial times, making quilts was both a practical and an aesthetic activity for those who made their homes on the plains. Combining scraps of fabric and stitching the larger piece of material created together with a backing and some form of batting in between, created warm and useful bedcovers. But perhaps just as important, this activity served as a creative outlet for women whose time was, of necessity, spent largely on the time-consuming day-to-day work of keeping house, raising a family and sometimes working alongside of their husbands in the family business. Quilts not only showcased needlework skills, but many also served as reminders of family and friends in the scraps of fabric from clothing worn, embroidered names and dates, and patterns that called to mind special times. Friendship quilts, designed to record names of friends and family, and sometimes special events, became popular in the United States starting in the mid 1870's.  Top Edith Withers Meyers, Quilter Edith Withers, the maker of this quilt, was born in 1876 in Mount Morris, Illinois. She came west with her family in 1885 to homestead near Lodgepole in Cheyenne County, Nebraska. In 1899 she married Oscar P. Meyers, also of Lodgepole, and they farmed and raised a family in the area. Edith died in 1953.   This quilt made by Edith is an intriguing record of her friends and family and the social life that she led from the time she was eighteen until she was twenty-two. The earliest date embroidered on the quilt is 1894, but most of the dates on the quilt are from four years later, starting with a fortune teller at the Allington residence on January 27, 1898. The last dated piece is for the month of December 1898 and is embroidered "done at last". Since Edith married Oscar Meyers (the Oscar "Myers" embroidered on one of the quilt blocks), it seems possible that this quilt commemorates their courtship.  Top Sierra Nevada Bunnell, Educator Sierra Nevada Bunnell, about 1890. Sierra Nevada Bunnell was born in Ashland, Nebraska, in 1870. Educated in Nebraska and Illinois, Sierra joined the faculty of the Lincoln Business College in 1890 or 1891 as an instructor of stenography and typing. In 1892, she married Asa Milo Smith and moved to Colby, Kansas, to live and raise a family. She died in 1933.   When she left in 1892 to marry and move to Kansas, her students made this quilt as remembrance piece, typing many of their names on the blocks and sewing a picture of the college faculty into the center of the quilt.

NSHS Home Exhibits Introduction Hide Paintings and        Ledger Books Diaries and Journals   J.A. Hill, Civil War   W. Richards, Surveyor   J.S. Morton, Statesman   Sara J. Price, Teacher        & Homesteader   W. Danley, Businessman   J. & E. Green, Farmers        & Homesteaders   S. Buck, Farm Wife Autograph Albums   S. & E. Allis, Missionaries   E. & L. Correll, Suffragists   W.J. Bryan, Orator   Lucy Drexel, Student   Viola Barnes, Student Scrapbooks   D. Canfield, Author   Willa Cather, Author   C. Calvert, Educator   Fenton. B. Fleming,        Businessman   Myrtle Soulier, Student   Verna Cort, Student   Martha McKelvie,        Movie Columnist   Emogine Moor,        Women's Army Corps   Scrapbooking Today Photograph Albums   W. B. Watson, Porter   Margaret and Edward        Gehrke, Adventurers   Nan Aspinwall,        Entertainer   Frances M. Creech,        Musician Quilts   Edith Withers Meyers,        Quilter   Sierra Nevada Bunnell,        Educator Home Movies Future Memories