A Passion for Quilts: The Story of Florence Peto

I am very pleased to announce that The Heritage Quilt Project of New Jersey has just published its second book A Passion for Quilts: The Story of Florence Peto which I co-authored with Natalie Hart, Rita Erickson, and Rachel Cochran. In addition, we are very lucky to have a  foreword by Virginia Avery and contributions by Cuesta Benberry, Bets Ramsey, and Merikay Waldvogel. Our first book, New Jersey Quilts 1777-1950: Contributions to an American Tradition, was published in 1992.  

Florence Peto was a quilt collector, quilt historian, and quiltmaker. The quilts she collected and those she made were of such high quality that they became significant parts of museum collections. Florence's enthusiasm for life, thirst for knowledge, and love of quilts led her on a path she might not have expected as a young woman at the end of the nineteenth century. Through books, magazines, lectures, and exhibits, she shared the stories she found in quilts and created a legacy that endures from the twentieth century into the twenty-first century. 

The book is 174 pages with more than 150 illustrations, including family photos and previously unpublished quilts. If you'd like to order a copy, send a check payable to The Heritage Quilt Project of New Jersey in the amount of $32.95 plus $5.00 for shipping and handling to: The Heritage Quilt Project of New Jersey, P.O. Box 341, Livingston, NJ 07039. Or you can go to our website http://www.newjerseyquilts.org/ and order using PayPal.

September 11th and "Pride In America" Quilt

Memories of events following 9-11-2001 are recorded in my photo albums. Some pages follow.

On September 23, 2001 my husband and I went to the "Remembrance & Reflections" ceremony at Liberty State Park. No backpacks, coolers, duffle bags or other packages were allowed. A rose was handed to everyone at the end of the ceremony upon exiting the park.

On December 3rd my daughter and I took the commuter ferry from Liberty State Park in NJ to Battery Park in NY. It was a beautiful warm day with temps in the 70s. Who ever heard of flowers blooming in December--in NY? There they were--Black-eyed Susans--to me a sign of hope : )  The photo at the bottom is of a make-shift memorial of stuffed animals.

 

From the time my son called on the day of the attack about "an explosion" at the World Trade Center to thoughts of making plans to evacuate our house, if necessary, much happened between 2001 and 2002.

The Anthrax scare and emails that circulated about Osama Bin Laden. Photos from Eagle Rock Reservation, West Orange, NJ.

The "Pride in America" quilt I assembled from blocks made by members of the Recreation Majors Club at Montclair State University. The project was initiated by my husband who was teaching at MSU.

A detail of several blocks made by students.

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The page in my album of the front, back, and label of "Pride in America."

A visit to the 9-11 memorial at Eagle Rock Reservation in 2003.

2003 Healing Field in Livingston, NJ.

3,412 American Flags--one for every person who was killed in 2001.

In August 2004 there was another terror threat and the entrance to the Prudential complex behind our house was barricaded.

The 9-11 monuments in Highlands, NJ, 2006.

One of the monuments, Highlands, NJ.

The 9-11 memorial Livingston, NJ.

Description of the sundial.

There will be a ceremony here tonight at 7 p.m. I'll be there.

Urns, Drapes, and Doves

Urns, drapes and doves seem to have captured my fancy. From an early NJ quilt containing a block with an inscribed name and drawing of an urn, to a mourning picture in memory of a child's death, to photographs of gravestones that I've taken through the years, I've often wondered about the impact gravestone art has on other art forms. Two needlework examples follow.

This wonderful pen and ink drawing appears in a Wild Goose Chase Variation quilt that was made in Mullica Hill, NJ between 1843-1847. Photo courtesy The Heritage Quilt Project of New Jersey.

A mourning picture in the collection of the Montclair Historical Society at the Israel Crane House. See my post of the quilt exhibit there this summer. The picture is painted and embroidered with what appears to be silk thread.

The gravestone inscription is on three tiers. Top tier in the cartouche are the letters C.A.L. The second tier: In Memory of /Charlotte Augusta Lynde/Born May 15, 1817--Died/April 11, 1824. Aged 7 years. Lower tier: Sleep innocent beloved! thy days of peril o'er/Thy God awaits thee, on a happier shore--/Where free from pain, you'll join the choir above/In our Redeemer's praise, and sing immortal love.

The Bertholf plot at the Hanover Cemetery in E. Hanover, NJ, has two gravestones with urns on top.

Abram C. Bertholf/Died April 11, 1880/Aged 71 Years/True and Faithful

 E. Eliza Kitchell/wife of/Abram C. Bertholf/Died Sept. 4, 1876/Aged 70 years

Another gravestone with an urn in the Hanover Cemetery. James S. Barron/Born Feb. 14, 1825/Died April 26, 1905/Ann M. Hopping/wife of/James S. Barron/Born Jan. 25, 1825/Died March 25, 1873.

Ellis and Isabel Cook's gravestone at the First Presbyterian Church of Hanover.

Sacred/to the memory of/Ellis Cook/a captain in the Revolutionary Army/who died A.D. 1832/and of/Isabel Cook/his wife/who died A.D. 1825/Erected by their descendants/A.D. 1860.

 

William and Maria Halsey's monument in the family plot at the First Presbyterian Church of Hanover.

The double-urn gravestone of Epaphras Cook Ely (1795-1864) and his wife Julia Ann Kitchell (1800-1864). Ely Cemetery, Livingston, NJ.

This huge monument is at Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Newark, NJ. Jesse Baldwin/Born/August 2, 1803/Died December 28, 1881-----Phebe Ann Burnet/His Wife/Born June 1810/Died April 13, 1894/Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.

Even my gr-gr-grandparents have an impressive urn-style monument in Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, NY.

Buried in the Hankinson plot are my gr-gr-grandparents John and Alice Hankinson; four of their children who died very young; my gr-grandfather, Frank Hankinson and another relative, Walter Hankinson.

 A fancy drape on Hetty Reeve Parsil's gravestone. Parsil Family Cemetery, Short Hills, NJ.

Eunice Sharp's gravestone. Northfield Baptist Cemetery, Livingston, NJ.

Nelson Sharp, Eunice's husband. Their gravestones are mounted on a large base. 

 

One of my favorite gravestones is this one with a drape and dove at the top. It's located at Northfield Baptist Cemetery, Livingston, NJ.

Here's another but with two doves that are nearly life-like. Had to look twice! Pleasant View Cemetery, Wilmington, NY.






   

Friends Forever

In 1985 I was at the American Quilter's Society first annual quilt show in Paducah, KY, where I took a class given by Elly Sienkiewicz, author of Baltimore Beauties and Beyond. She taught various techniques for making new Baltimore album-style quilts and suggested using fabrics that were large-scale, allover prints which were certainly different from what I was used to working with--thus the challenge! When I decided to make a quilt using her techniques, I purchased an assortment of large-scale fabrics at the Great American Quilt Festival in NYC that I thought might work for the four blocks in the center. The border blocks were adapted from an antique quilt Cut-Paper Cockscomb that I saw in American Quilts and How to Make Them by Carter Houck and Myron Miller. But I didn't want these border blocks to be empty so I copied verses from autograph books--my grandmother's, my mother's, mine, and my daughter's--I had all four.

Four generations of autograph books. 

Friends Forever took two years to make. It is hand-pieced, hand-appliqued and hand-quilted. 

 The block for my grandmother, Ethel Strubbe Bower.

From my grandfather, Stanton M. Bower, to his future bride, Ethel Strubbe, in 1905.

The block I inscribed with the same verse.

 The block for my mother, Etta Bower Davis.

To my mother, Etta Bower, from her friend Anna Beatty, June 23, 1922. 

The block I inscribed with the same verse.

 The block with my name, Barbara Davis Schaffer.

From my good friend, Marilyn Dittmore, a twin.

 The verse I inscribed from Marilyn.

 The block for my daughter, Connie Schaffer.

To Connie from her friend, Beth Modell.

 The block I inscribed with Beth's verse.

The back of the quilt with a block that just didn't work on the front.

What I love most of all is the page in my autograph book written and illustrated by my grandfather, Stanton M. Bower in 1955.