Yesterday I went down south of Salt Lake to Springville, Utah to their art museum to view the annual Springville Quilt Show. This is a prestigious quilt show held in a prestigious art museum. Another thing that makes this quilt show unique is that all the quilts have to be "juried" to be accepted in the show. This means that they "prejudge" the quilts and not every quilt that is submitted gets accepted. I believe that about 90 quilts were submitted but only 82 were accepted. So as I am making my way through the show I come across the above quilt and as I read the explanation card that is posted next to it I am pleasantly surprised to find that I have a personal connection to this quilt's story. You see, my great grandmother is Minnie Petersen Jorgensen and my mother was given one of these red and white Burgoyne Surrounded quilts which my mother has passed on to me. I actually remember sleeping under the quilt that is pictured with my mother and I always knew it was made by her grandmother. I come from a long line of quilters on my mother's side and my father's mother was a quilter as well. The quilt entered in the quilt show was made by my 2nd cousin's wife, Judy Fitzgerald. She also had her mother-in-law's original quilt displayed next to the new version in the quilt show.
In 1994 a group of women connected to the Utah Quilt Guild were trying to document any quilts that they could find that were made in Utah before 1950. I had the above red one and I also had a beautiful yellow and white quilt that my grandmother made as my mother's wedding quilt. So I asked my mom to accompany me to the documenting event and we had the two quilts documented at that time. A couple months later someone called me and said they were writing a book and producing a video presentation about the documented quilts and would I be willing to be interviewed for both. Both the book and the video came out in 1997. Both are titled "Gathered In Time". They chose to include my grandmother, Mary Hazel Norr Jorgensen, and the yellow wedding quilt (I will show that quilt another time). It was such a thrill to be able to honor her that way. When the book was released there was a quilt show held at our State Capital building and both the red and yellow quilts were displayed. That is when I took this photo of my mom and her grandmother's quilt.
I love the way quilts bind generations together. I hope someday my grandkids or great-grandkids will still have my quilts and know something of me and my life.
2 comments:
My grandma made me a Sunbonnet Girl quilt when I was eight and it was on my bed, then Polly's, then Jo's and finally on the grandkid guest bed at mom's. It was totally dilapidated by the time my mom died, (after 40 years of constant use) but there were several squares that held up. Polly cut them out and framed them, and all the granddaughters got a square. It's so fun to inherit something of your grandma's...including her talent. I missed out on that, but you obviously got yours.
Wow...Just read Heidi's blog..what an adventure...how are you holding up??
Wow Wow that's all I can say.
You must have such mixed feeling.
As mom's we never want to hold our kids back but, China??? soooo far.
On the bright side it might be fun to take a trip there...hehehe
I hope they come back to AZ in the future...cause I always thought that someday when you came to visit her we would meet for lunch!!
Oh selfish me.
B.
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