A very sentimental, special quilt

The quilt I’m sharing with you isn’t mine. It belongs to my sister-in-law, and I didn’t even know it existed until I happened to see her using it just this past Christmas. When I saw it, my heart nearly stopped; I asked her a thousand questions, and she told me it was one of two quilts gifted to her parents by the ladies of the church. But other than that, she didn’t really remember the back story about this exceptional quilt. 

To give you a little background, I grew up in a small town, Canal Fulton, Ohio. It was a neighboring town to Clinton, where we attended church at the Clinton Church of Christ from when I was about 4 years old. My brother, Bob, is almost ten years older than me and he dated the preacher’s daughter, Cheri, in high school. Her Dad was the pastor of the Clinton church, and their names are Norman and Norma Maynard. Cheri has two younger sisters, Paula and Laurie. Laurie and I were in the same grade in school. As a fun side note, Laurie and I used to play the piano and organ together for Sunday morning service throughout our time in high school! Our two families did a lot together during those years; we shared many Thanksgiving, Christmas, and other holiday dinners and get-togethers; especially after Bob and Cheri got married. 

My faith is strongly rooted in those formative years attending the Clinton Church. I learned so much from the devoted and strong women of faith who led Sunday School (Doris Cameron and Helen Lieb) and so many others who volunteered to serve with the youth group and at annual events like Vacation Bible School.  All this to say, it was a tight-knit community where everyone knew everyone and so many friendships were made and endured because of church activities, picnics, revivals and Bible studies. 

Seeing this extraordinary quilt, with initials of the makers marking almost every hand-stitched, embroidered block, brought back many memories of the women I remembered growing up. I couldn’t wait to find out more and discover the story about how this (and the other quilt) came to be made and gifted to the Maynards. 

We started by contacting Paula and Laurie to try to date the quilt. Laurie said that while the quilts were given as gifts to her parents from the ladies of the church, her Mom encouraged her to take both quilts to Cincinnati Bible College with her. That would have been in 1981. We also contacted a few of the women who were members of the church during that time but sadly most, if not all, of the women who may have contributed blocks to the quilts have long since gone on to their reward in heaven. In our discussions through texts though, we narrowed the timing down to the quilt being made and gifted to the Maynards around 1978 — which was most likely on the anniversary of them pastoring the church for 25 years. 

It turns out there were two quilts — one with Old Testament scenes and one with New Testament scenes (which is the one in the photo.) Both Laurie and Paula have searched to see if they could find the second quilt but sadly, it has not been found as of this writing. So, we focused on trying to figure out the possible names of the makers as based on the initials. We enlisted the help of Mary Downs; a long-time member and pillar of the church (and a dear friend) and she was truly helpful in helping to put names to initials. To date, these are the names we’ve come up with:

DF —
MR — Mabel Robinson or Mary Robey
EG — Edna Mae Gottwalt
MN — Margie Nettle or Marg
DC — Doris Cameron
MC — Myrtle Cameron
MM / SM — Molly Martin
HN — Hazel Nettle
BC — Bonnie Cragle
CA —

I hope perhaps there is someone who will read this and have additional information about this precious quilt. We’d like to know who organized the effort or sewed the quilt together. The quilting is all done by hand and it looks as if it could have been done by several people. 

The next part of the mystery was finding out about the drawings/patterns of the bible scenes themselves. Originally, I did an internet search and didn’t come up with any patterns for hand embroidery of Bible scenes. But then, Mary Downs came through with the answer. She told me she remembered she used to go to the old Ben Franklin store in Canal Fulton where they sold embroidery transfer patterns. It was a light bulb moment for me! I remembered the pattern company called Aunt Martha’s designs and immediately searched on their website. Viola! They still have the embroidery transfer designs for the Old and New Testament patterns! (You can see these by CLICKING HERE and HERE.) I placed an order for these design packs because I plan to stitch these designs myself someday to create a king size quilt with all the bible scenes for our bed. 

This odyssey has been a lovely, sentimental walk down memory lane. If you happen to know any information about this quilt, please reach out to me at moc.omnieylrebmiknull@ylrebmiK. We’d love to put the whole story together and put names to the two remaining sets of initials. I wouldn’t trade the sweet memories I have of the Clinton Church of Christ or of the people who were members of this church for anything in the world. My experiences there truly shaped me and helped me form a solid faith I’ve held steadfastly to my entire life. I’m grateful for the fun exchange with my sister-in-law and these women I call friends as we’ve tried to piece together the story behind the quilt. This has reinforced the importance of adding labels to ALL quilts for future generations so names, dates, and important events won’t be lost to time. I plan to make a label of all the information we have gathered so far and attach it to the back of this quilt before returning it to my SIL. If I’m lucky, maybe she’ll let me visit the quilt from time to time, just to reminisce and touch the stitches made with love and friendship for a pastor and his wife who loved the church so much.