In 2016 I co-authored an article for Blanket Statements, the newsletter of the American Quilt Study Group with Marian Ann Montgomery, Curator of Clothing and Textiles at the Museum of Texas Tech University. Today I was rereading the article after posting it to Barbara Brackman's QuiltHistorySouth Facebook group, and discovered errors in the descriptions of the block structures of two quilts.
The original (PDF) can be found on the academia.edu web site, click here. Here is the corrected and revised article.
Cross Roads to Bachelor’s Hall
By Marian Ann J. Montgomery, Ph.D., and Bill Volckening
The uncanny similarities between two quilts in the collection at the Museum of Texas Tech University and a quilt appearing in Quilters Newsletter led to collaborative research, with a focus on dating quilts using published pattern sources and physical attributes.
By Marian Ann J. Montgomery, Ph.D., and Bill Volckening
The uncanny similarities between two quilts in the collection at the Museum of Texas Tech University and a quilt appearing in Quilters Newsletter led to collaborative research, with a focus on dating quilts using published pattern sources and physical attributes.
When the December/
January 2016 issue
of Quilters Newsletter
was released, a quilt on page 17 caught the attention of Marian Ann
Montgomery, Curator of Clothing and Textiles
at the Museum of Texas Tech University.
Montgomery was in the
midst of planning an
exhibition and catalogue,
and two of the Museum’s quilts, one in the exhibit
and another recent
acquisition, were
remarkably similar to the
one in the magazine.
Montgomery came across one of the quilts during an inventory in 2014. It is red, white and light blue, 73 inches by 84.25 inches, and it has a modern looking design with square blocks forming a secondary circular design with a blue square cornerstone in the center of each circle. There are 16 blocks and four half blocks along the upper edge. Each block is approximately 16 and 1/2 inches by 16 and 1/6 inches. (See Figure 1)
In 2015, Linda Fisher from Lubbock, Texas, donated an almost identical quilt. It is also red and white with a light blue that is a deeper hue than the first quilt, and red circles rather than blue squares at the cornerstone point of each block. It is 79 inches wide and 90 inches long with the same number of blocks and half blocks as the first quilt. Each block is approximately 17 inches square. (See Figure 2)
Both quilts came with only bits of information. The first quilt was donated to the museum by the grandson of the maker. The donor had passed away; there were no other descendants to contact, but his obituary provided the full name of both of his parents. Pat Grappe, a volunteer and trained historian who regularly does research for the Clothing and Textiles Division, found more information about the first quiltmaker, and a family group photo that included her.
Olive Pearl Wigley, the maker of the first quilt, was born on August 3, 1885, in Hunt, Texas. Census records showed her residence as Fannin County, east of Dallas, in 1900. She married Robert Pickney Price on August 8, 1905, in Honey Grove, Texas, which is also in Fannin County. By 1910 she was living in Michell County, Texas, which is west of Abilene and south of Lubbock. She remained in Michell County, likely on a ranch, until she moved into Colorado City, a town in Michell County, sometime in the 1920s. Her husband died on July 12, 1948, and she lived on until May 13, 1974.
Montgomery came across one of the quilts during an inventory in 2014. It is red, white and light blue, 73 inches by 84.25 inches, and it has a modern looking design with square blocks forming a secondary circular design with a blue square cornerstone in the center of each circle. There are 16 blocks and four half blocks along the upper edge. Each block is approximately 16 and 1/2 inches by 16 and 1/6 inches. (See Figure 1)
In 2015, Linda Fisher from Lubbock, Texas, donated an almost identical quilt. It is also red and white with a light blue that is a deeper hue than the first quilt, and red circles rather than blue squares at the cornerstone point of each block. It is 79 inches wide and 90 inches long with the same number of blocks and half blocks as the first quilt. Each block is approximately 17 inches square. (See Figure 2)
Both quilts came with only bits of information. The first quilt was donated to the museum by the grandson of the maker. The donor had passed away; there were no other descendants to contact, but his obituary provided the full name of both of his parents. Pat Grappe, a volunteer and trained historian who regularly does research for the Clothing and Textiles Division, found more information about the first quiltmaker, and a family group photo that included her.
Olive Pearl Wigley, the maker of the first quilt, was born on August 3, 1885, in Hunt, Texas. Census records showed her residence as Fannin County, east of Dallas, in 1900. She married Robert Pickney Price on August 8, 1905, in Honey Grove, Texas, which is also in Fannin County. By 1910 she was living in Michell County, Texas, which is west of Abilene and south of Lubbock. She remained in Michell County, likely on a ranch, until she moved into Colorado City, a town in Michell County, sometime in the 1920s. Her husband died on July 12, 1948, and she lived on until May 13, 1974.
The quilt donated by Fisher is actually a time-span
quilt, a vintage top finished recently. A friend of
Fisher’s purchased the top for 25 dollars at a garage
sale in a “large sprawling house between Indiana and
University and the Loop and 82nd Street” in Lubbock,
Texas, and Fisher quilted it.
Cross Roads to Bachelor’s Hall is pattern number 2946 in the Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns by Barbara Brackman, and is attributed to Clara Stone. The pattern appeared in Practical Needlework: Quilt Patterns, published in 1906 by C.W. Calkins & Company in Boston. The booklet was one of a series containing patterns originally designed by Clara Stone for periodicals published by Vickery and Hill Company in Augusta, Maine.
Based on the life dates of the maker of the first quilt and when the pattern was published, a circa date of 1915 seemed reasonable for both of the quilts in the Museum of Texas Tech collection. The quilt in Quilters Newsletter had a much earlier date—1870. At first, it seemed improbable since 1870 was much earlier than the Clara Stone pattern. The red, white, and green quilt was part of The Volckening Collection of Portland, Oregon. (See Figure 4)
“The quilt came from a seller in Texas,” said Volckening, who initially thought the quilt was made even earlier based on its physical attributes. “I have seen a couple examples from Tennessee, and I thought it was possible the quilt could’ve been made in Tennessee originally and migrated to Texas, but it was found in Texas. The colors are over-dyed green (faded) and worn Turkey red. The name Cross Roads to Bachelor’s Hall is the earliest published name I could find for it.”
Dimensions are 76 inches by 94 inches, and each of the 20 blocks was 18 inches square. The thin, cotton quilt is densely quilted, chaff visible in the batting, with a fine, quarter-inch applied white binding matching all the other white fabric. The quilt has a patina. Fabrics show signs of fading, deterioration and yellowing. The methods of construction and signs of age offer more information worth considering about the quilt. Was it plausible to think it predated the earliest published patterns by more than a quarter century?
Two related examples from Tennessee, found by Volckening on the Quilt Index, had circa dates between 1880 and 1890. Callie Burnett and Laura White of Pelham, Grundy County, Tennessee, made one quilt with solid red, white and blue fabrics. The dimensions were 62.5 inches by 80 inches, and family date was 1883. The second quilt was red, white and green, made in Winchester, Tennessee, around 1890. No maker’s name or life dates were available, but the great aunt of the owner made it. The quilt was 68.5 inches by 92 inches.
Cross Roads to Bachelor’s Hall is pattern number 2946 in the Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns by Barbara Brackman, and is attributed to Clara Stone. The pattern appeared in Practical Needlework: Quilt Patterns, published in 1906 by C.W. Calkins & Company in Boston. The booklet was one of a series containing patterns originally designed by Clara Stone for periodicals published by Vickery and Hill Company in Augusta, Maine.
Based on the life dates of the maker of the first quilt and when the pattern was published, a circa date of 1915 seemed reasonable for both of the quilts in the Museum of Texas Tech collection. The quilt in Quilters Newsletter had a much earlier date—1870. At first, it seemed improbable since 1870 was much earlier than the Clara Stone pattern. The red, white, and green quilt was part of The Volckening Collection of Portland, Oregon. (See Figure 4)
“The quilt came from a seller in Texas,” said Volckening, who initially thought the quilt was made even earlier based on its physical attributes. “I have seen a couple examples from Tennessee, and I thought it was possible the quilt could’ve been made in Tennessee originally and migrated to Texas, but it was found in Texas. The colors are over-dyed green (faded) and worn Turkey red. The name Cross Roads to Bachelor’s Hall is the earliest published name I could find for it.”
Dimensions are 76 inches by 94 inches, and each of the 20 blocks was 18 inches square. The thin, cotton quilt is densely quilted, chaff visible in the batting, with a fine, quarter-inch applied white binding matching all the other white fabric. The quilt has a patina. Fabrics show signs of fading, deterioration and yellowing. The methods of construction and signs of age offer more information worth considering about the quilt. Was it plausible to think it predated the earliest published patterns by more than a quarter century?
Two related examples from Tennessee, found by Volckening on the Quilt Index, had circa dates between 1880 and 1890. Callie Burnett and Laura White of Pelham, Grundy County, Tennessee, made one quilt with solid red, white and blue fabrics. The dimensions were 62.5 inches by 80 inches, and family date was 1883. The second quilt was red, white and green, made in Winchester, Tennessee, around 1890. No maker’s name or life dates were available, but the great aunt of the owner made it. The quilt was 68.5 inches by 92 inches.
Merikay Waldvogel, co-author of The Quilts of
Tennessee: Images of Domestic Life Prior to 1930, commented on the difficulty dating quilts with all solid
colors. Waldvogel said the fabrics in Volckening’s quilt
“seemed to be the 1850s green—that lemony shade.” Volckening describes the Turkey red as having a cool
tone and shows color loss and deterioration consistent
with fabrics of the middle nineteenth century.
“Determining age is a matter of finding enough reliable clues in the quilt to build a case for a date,” said Barbara Brackman in her seminal book Clues in the Calico, A Guide to Identifying and Dating Antique Quilts. Quilts served as inspiration for pattern designers of early twentieth century, and some designs existed for decades before they were published. It is not unheard of to find quilts that predate the earliest published patterns. Volckening’s New York Beauty Collection includes 70 quilts, 24 of which were made before the earliest published pattern representing the motif.
Cross Roads to Bachelor’s Hall was a much less common pattern than New York Beauty, and there were far fewer examples to study. Kansas City Star published the same pattern as Cross Roads in 1931 and Wagon Wheels in 1941; and Capper’s Weekly also published a Cross Roads pattern, but very few quilts surfaced with the design. One sold at auction by Blanchard’s Auction Service in Potsdam, New York, in 2012 and Jan Magee recently found one in an antiques mall.
The research process for these quilts shed light on the importance of knowing when a pattern was first published, who made the quilt, the maker’s life dates, and how the physical characteristics aligned with the pattern publication information. The estimated dates for the two quilts in the Museum of Texas Tech University were close to the earliest publication date of the pattern, but the date for the quilt from the Volckening Collection was supported more by the clues in the cloth.
In the end, all the dates checked out, and Montgomery successfully launched her exhibition and published the catalogue. Volckening soon will publish his second book, Modern Roots: Today’s Quilts from Yesterday’s Inspiration, and it will include a pattern and a twenty-first century rendition of the design. Perhaps we will see more of these quilts in the future.
“Determining age is a matter of finding enough reliable clues in the quilt to build a case for a date,” said Barbara Brackman in her seminal book Clues in the Calico, A Guide to Identifying and Dating Antique Quilts. Quilts served as inspiration for pattern designers of early twentieth century, and some designs existed for decades before they were published. It is not unheard of to find quilts that predate the earliest published patterns. Volckening’s New York Beauty Collection includes 70 quilts, 24 of which were made before the earliest published pattern representing the motif.
Cross Roads to Bachelor’s Hall was a much less common pattern than New York Beauty, and there were far fewer examples to study. Kansas City Star published the same pattern as Cross Roads in 1931 and Wagon Wheels in 1941; and Capper’s Weekly also published a Cross Roads pattern, but very few quilts surfaced with the design. One sold at auction by Blanchard’s Auction Service in Potsdam, New York, in 2012 and Jan Magee recently found one in an antiques mall.
The research process for these quilts shed light on the importance of knowing when a pattern was first published, who made the quilt, the maker’s life dates, and how the physical characteristics aligned with the pattern publication information. The estimated dates for the two quilts in the Museum of Texas Tech University were close to the earliest publication date of the pattern, but the date for the quilt from the Volckening Collection was supported more by the clues in the cloth.
In the end, all the dates checked out, and Montgomery successfully launched her exhibition and published the catalogue. Volckening soon will publish his second book, Modern Roots: Today’s Quilts from Yesterday’s Inspiration, and it will include a pattern and a twenty-first century rendition of the design. Perhaps we will see more of these quilts in the future.
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