Читать книгу Following the Barn Quilt Trail - Suzi Parron - Страница 13

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GLEN AND I arrived in Vicksburg disheveled and exhausted, but Hugh and Kitch Rinehart were so welcoming that our tension soon evaporated. Their lakefront home provided the comfortable refuge that we needed. Gracie had the run of the backyard, and she splashed and slurped along the sand, relishing her freedom. Kitch and I set out on a paddle boat, laughing as we struggled to maneuver the craft along the shore, while Glen zoomed across the water on a jet ski at full throttle. I felt as if we were on vacation instead of at work. Dinner on the deck with cold wine and lively conversation helped relieve the strain of the last twenty-four hours. “This might just work out after all,” Glen said, as we watched the sunset over the water,

The next morning, Glen set up his laptops at the dining room table where a wall of windows afforded him a sunny view. I often felt guilty spending time on the quilt trail leaving Glen behind to his work. He was stuck in front of a computer, manipulating data and solving global problems for his employer. The work requires a sharp mind, intense concentration, and decades of experience; I admired the fact that he was at the top of his profession. Of course I was working as well, but instead of data, graphs, and teleconferences I enjoyed lively conversation, fresh air, and a chance to enjoy the local sights. My workday was fun, and, when I returned, my bubbling forth with stories sometimes felt like mocking rather than sharing.

I grabbed a quick bowl of cereal and my morning caffeine dose of Diet Coke and was ready to join Kitch for the tour. We chatted along the way about favorite quilts and quilt patterns and ideas she had gleaned from other quilt trails. Cindi Van Hurk, who chaired Michigan’s first barn quilt project, in Alcona County, had served as an early advisor to the Vicksburg group. This project is different from most, with its boundary not the county line but the Vicksburg school district, creating a compact and easily drivable route so that only a few minutes elapsed between barns. Kitch and I would stop mid-sentence, step out to view a quilt block and take photographs from every angle, then hop back into the car and resume our conversation seamlessly. After half an hour on the quilt trail, we had fallen into a rhythm like longtime friends.

Love the Land

Before we reached our first destination, Kitch said, “This might look rather familiar to you.” As we rounded the corner, I saw a barn quilt that did resemble one I had seen before; in fact the block is in the Iowa chapter of my first book. Kitch said, “I give barn owners the book and ask them what appeals to them—not to select something from the book but just to get an idea of colors and what looks good. After all, the colors are great combinations.” Freddi Coppes had been taken with the quilt block created by the Reese family in Iowa to honor their heritage and wanted the same one for her barn.

Kitch agreed that the barn quilt was lovely but thought perhaps it would not be an appropriate choice. The original design features a German flag, and Freddi’s husband, Richard, is a World War II veteran. “I just didn’t think that would work well,” Kitch said. A few changes made the block suit Richard and Freddi perfectly. Freddi’s ancestors were Dutch loggers and woodcutters, so pine trees were added to represent her side of the family, and the stylized American flags to honor her husband, the veteran. The couple could not decide what to call the finished product, so Kitch suggested Love the Land. The American flag snapping in the wind next to the milk house out front completed the scene and the sentiment perfectly.

Kitch enjoyed the barn quilt project immensely. She said, “We all love our big barns, but most of us had never been inside of ’em.” With local resident Sue Moore on board as the “mover and shaker” that Kitch needed, within two weeks the idea moved from a discussion to a reality, under the direction of a committee of four couples and the Vicksburg Historical Society. The Rinehart’s garage served as the painting headquarters, but it was definitely a community effort. Kitch said, “We have everybody painting—neighbors, friends, grandchildren, and even paint parties in town. We spread a great big orange tarp and four sets of sawhorses, and it was nonstop for a year and a half.”

Kitch and I visited the local farmers’ market, where the music from a three-piece bluegrass band enlivened the shops and rows of vendors. I had no need for produce or cheese or even beefalo but I grabbed some homemade fudge—dark chocolate for me, and milk chocolate with pistachios for Glen.

The Unique Furnishings shop sits among the brick storefronts of Vicksburg’s main street, and we found owner Christina Klok waiting. Within, a ceiling of creamy white tin set off antique light fixtures and fans. Glass showcases were laden with jewelry and trinkets, and shelves of handcrafted décor, soaps, and candles lined the aisles. I spotted a jar of salted caramels on a shelf along the wall and was tempted to grab a few, but Christina and Kitch were already seated, waiting for me to join them.

Before the conversation turned to barn quilts, Christina asked about our mishap. “I heard you had a challenging trip here. Holy Cow, when I read that email I thought, ‘These things don’t just happen to me!’”

Christina shared the significance of the Wreath of Lilies quilt block that she and her husband Leonard chose: “People traveled from far and wide to see the lotus lilies on Sunset Lake. They are what put Vicksburg on the map.” Christina had photographs of Victorian-era visitors and articles about the unusual blossoms. She went on to say that the trains carrying folks to the Chicago World Fair stopped in Vicksburg so that passengers could see the lotus lilies and buy them. Local kids uprooted the plants and sold them for a quarter or fifty cents each. The lilies were found in few other places, so the saucer-sized blooms remained a tourist attraction until the early 1930s, when they disappeared due to overharvesting. Referring to her quilt block Christina said, “We love flowers and the water, and we still have flowers over there—just not the lilies.”

Wreath of Lilies

Kitch and I moved on, and again our drive provided a chance to chat. Kitch explained how the quilt trail got started. “I knew one person—Sue. She had come to do a talk about our lake and she took some pictures from my house. She introduced herself and we clicked. It just happened later that I knew the right person to call.” One out of every five who were asked to host a barn quilt declined. An elderly woman was wary of having people coming into her property, and some others had recently added metal siding to their barn and didn’t want holes punched in it. Kitch said, “They had good reasons, but they broke my heart.”

I exclaimed, “That’s a cool barn,” just as Kitch slowed to pull into the drive where Dawn Hippen Hall stood ready to talk about her barn quilt. The family considered a patriotic design for their barn quilt, but the quilt trail already included a red-white-and-blue quilt block. Dawn said, “My parents, me, and my brother, and my daughter; we are like a star.” Dawn looked online and found Broken Star, which seemed appropriate. “When Kitch called me, my father had just passed away three weeks previous, and I had taken care of him for two years. I felt like the family had just broken up. The colors remind me of a rainbow and starting over,” she said.

Broken Star

Dawn and her brother, Daryl, especially love the fabric designs in the quilt block. Hugh and Kitch primed and dropped off the boards at the high school, where students painted the star, carefully using texture to create the look of fabric. Afterwards, all of the painters signed the border with their names and where they were from. The group included international students from Morocco, Italy, and Germany. Dawn and her family signed the quilt block also, and Dawn was very pleased with the final product. “She saw it and immediately started grinning,” Kitch said.

Dawn said, “It had been really tough. The farm was really important to my parents, and I have lived here almost all of my life. When I grew up there were barns all over, and I realized when Kitch called me that there aren’t as many as there used to be.” Dawn had touched on a critical aspect of the barn quilt movement, that of barn preservation. Many a barn owner has reported saving his barn so that it could be home to a quilt square.

Kitch and I drove on to Deb Fisher’s home, where we both commented on the well-tended gardens out front. Deb said immediately on our approach, “I hear you had some trouble on the way here.” I told her the repairs to the bus would take a couple of months, thinking at the time that my statement was hyperbole. Kitch laughed and said, “This was the shakedown cruise of this RV,” and she went on to relate that Glen and I were considering making the bus our permanent home.

“Not that one!” Deb exclaimed.

We got to the discussion of Deb’s quilt block and the cloth quilt that it represents. The quilt belonged to Deb’s great-grandmother Lenora VanGuilder Fisher, who lived from 1871 to 1941. Deb smiled when I asked how she came to have the quilt. Deb has no children, and her mother wanted the quilt to be passed down to someone in the family. “That’s why I painted it,” Deb said. “I had seen the blocks on the other buildings and decided I was going to put one up whether it’s sanctioned or not.” The Rineharts admired her work and appreciated the connection to the family quilt and welcomed Deb’s addition to the quilt trail. Deb’s mother was impressed as well, so she gave great-grandmother Lenora’s quilt to Deb. The quilt will eventually go to one of her nieces or nephews, but for now it is Deb’s to enjoy.

Deb said that Drunkard’s Path was associated with the temperance movement, and I asked what she knew about the history. She told us that after the Civil War, a lot of men came home with substance-abuse problems. Also, a lot of those who were immigrating in the early twentieth century, such as Irish Catholics and Jews from Eastern Europe, used alcohol as a part of their religious ceremonies. They weren’t teetotalers like the strict Protestants. Deb wasn’t certain how the quilter felt about alcohol, but she knew one thing for certain. “My grandmother was very much against drink, and she was the one who first showed the quilt to me.” I could understand a quilt being symbolic but wondered how quilt making could have actually supported the temperance movement. Deb explained that quilts might have been sold as fundraisers so that women could pamphleteer. Quilting might also have been a way to bring women together to spread the notion that drinking was evil. Deb said, “A woman in the house who didn’t like alcohol was going to make a man’s life hell and make him quit drinking. Maybe they used it as a way to proselytize among the women. If the scions of the community are anti-drink, the young ladies are going to want to be seen as morally upright people.”

Deb’s quilt, which is not a scrap quilt but is made of just three fabrics, is at least a century old. “I know that the majority of the quilt squares are about the barn and the farm, but mine is about the quilt,” Deb said. “This place has been a farm for a long time, but none of the barns are left. The last one is under that flower patch,” Deb said, gesturing toward the gardens we had admired earlier.

Deb Fisher with her Drunkard’s Path quilt and barn quilt

As we headed back to the lake and dinner, Kitch and I agreed that the day had been a success. The four of us relaxed around a bonfire in the sand that evening while Gracie attempted to stalk the Rinehart’s yellow cat, Murphy. I was concerned, but Kitch assured me that Murphy could handle himself. Moments later a loud yelp confirmed that the cat had taught the seventy-four-pound dog a lesson. Poor Gracie refused to venture outside for the rest of our stay if she glimpsed Murphy anywhere nearby. Gracie’s scratched nose and the cowboy costume that Hugh donned the next morning as he prepared for a shooting competition were the types of memories to which Glen and I would refer often over the next few months. We left Vicksburg knowing that we had made new friends and that we would return.

. . .

Elsie Vredenberg and I had corresponded for several years about the quilt trail she had spearheaded in Osceola County, Michigan. More than ninety barn quilts comprised the trail, and I had eagerly awaited Elsie’s photographs that documented each addition. I was glad to have the opportunity to visit. I met Elsie and committee member Cindy Cambier at Elsie’s home one dreary morning; it was a less than perfect barn quilting day, but our mood was ebullient. Osceola is a large county, and, rather than attempt a comprehensive tour in just a few hours, Elsie had carefully chosen a few of her favorites.

Our first stop was at the Schmidt farm in Reed City. The red barn’s immaculate condition was impressive, but the quilt block looked mighty small. Before my disappointment could set in, Elsie pointed out the full-sized barn quilt on the far end of the barn. Jalayne Markey greeted us and invited us in. She beamed with pride as she told the story of her family’s Blazing Star barn quilt.

Jalayne is the fifth generation of her family on the farm that was founded by her great-great-grandfather, John Schmidt. The barn on which the quilt block hangs was built in 1877, with the house built the following year. Jalayne’s father, Garth, was born on the property in 1918 and farmed there for almost eighty years. “He was out riding his tractor, plowing fields with his nephew two weeks before he died,” Jalayne said.

The family wanted to honor Jalayne’s mother, Elvera, who had been a prolific quilter, with a barn quilt but none of her quilts seemed right for the barn. The family had a Blazing Star quilt made in the 1930s by Jalayne’s great-grandmother to commemorate Elvera’s confirmation, and the colors were a perfect fit. The farm had recently received its sesquicentennial certificate and the accompanying sign, which was hung on the side facing the house. Garth thought that the barn quilt and sign ought to hang together, but Elsie urged Jalayne and her husband, Jim, to place the quilt square on the end where it could be more visible to the public. A compromise was reached whereby the smaller version, which I had seen earlier, was painted by the family.

The family held a celebration for the barn quilt hanging, which included a cake dedicated to Elvera. For the next three years, Garth enjoyed looking out the window to see the family heirloom in place. The farm was founded on June 5, 1863, and Garth passed away on June 6, 2013, the day after the official sesquicentennial date.

Blazing Star

We left the Schmidt farm and drove through the rugged countryside, where Elsie began to point out a series of barn quilts. My favorite was a large gray barn with a Rose of Sharon quilt block. I was excited to hear that we would see the cloth quilt that went with it, but when we entered the home of Wava Woods, there was so much more to see. Wava is a collector, and she surrounds herself with her favorite things. Many were passed to her from childless aunts and uncles and preserved in a room built specially to house them. A long dining table was set with a perfect set of china; nearby were cabinets brimming with more. Teapots, lamps, exquisite embroidered pieces—I could have spent the afternoon plundering.

But of course we wanted to talk about barn quilts. An only child, Wava had come to own four century farms, two from each side of the family. It seemed only fitting that each should be home to a barn quilt. A Feathered Star quilt block that we had passed earlier represented the feather ticks that Wava inherited from her aunts and uncles and made into down pillows. A Nine Patch Variation decorates another family barn and is patterned after a quilt that is over 130 years old.

The Rose of Sharon was taken from a family quilt made by Wava’s Aunt Mabel and her husband, John, sometime in the 1940s. Wava brought the quilt out and spread it so that we could see the pattern as she talked about how popular the quilt had been when entered in shows nearby. The Rose of Sharon barn quilt represents not only the cloth quilt but also Wava’s daughter, Sharon, and her great-aunt, Rosiena. I found it interesting that Rosiena was Wava’s great-aunt on both sides of the family, as aunt to each of her parents. In addition, Wava’s granddaughter has the middle name Rose, so the names associated with the quilt are found in the first, third, and fourth generations of the family.

The barn itself is significant to Wava as the only barn raising in which she took part. “With one loud call and a lot of lifting in all corners, in a few minutes the skeleton structure was standing upright.” Wava did more than observe; she helped the women who prepared food and set it on boards laid across sawhorses so that the workers could come by and pick up food and sit on the grass nearby. Young Wava also carried water from the kitchen stove to granite washbasins that were set on potato crates for the men to clean up before eating.

Wava’s favorite barn quilt is the twelve-pointed star called Moon Lit Woods, which sits on a small barn visible down the hill from her home. Wava explained that the name of the quilt block was also the name of the property. Right after Wava and her husband, Dale, were married, Wava’s father became ill, so the farm would have to be sold if the new generation could not take over. Dale worked in a factory and had cows of his own, and Wava worked at the hospital, but there was no other choice. Wava said, “We came home with our cows, tractor, and house trailer just like gypsies traveling down the road.” At that point anything that got done on the farm was done by moonlight, so paired with their last name, Moon Lit Woods became the new name of the farm.

The Moon Lit Woods quilt block has twelve points: for Wava and Dale, their two children and their spouses, and Wava and Dale’s six grandchildren. A dark blue background represents the night sky, yellow the moon, and, at the bottom of the block, five evergreen trees were painted to represent the couple’s five living grandchildren. The trees are all of different heights, as the children were as well. At the suggestion of their son, John, a sixth tiny tree was added to honor his daughter Elice, the grandchild who had lived only two days, so that she could stand next to her surviving twin, Katlin.

Rose of Sharon

Wava Woods’s Rose of Sharon quilt

Snail’s Trail

Wava had so much to share that I could have stayed all day, but Elsie had mentioned a very special quilt block that I wanted to see. In late afternoon, we headed to nearby Cadillac, where Elsie was working to get a new quilt trail started, for the last visit of the day. I had admired the Octagonal Building and was especially drawn to it because the quilt block was an exact replica of the Snail’s Trail that Donna Sue and Maxine Groves had on their barn. Elsie could not have chosen a better tribute, and Donna Sue had already told me how much she appreciated the gesture. The thoughtful mood was broken as we entered the building and I realized that I would be discussing such an important quilt block with a clown.

Rudy Grahek is known to many as Dynamite the Clown. He had not dressed the part, but Rudy’s exuberant smile and energetic storytelling gave the impression that he was good at his job. Rudy shared memories of growing up near the fairgrounds. “I could see the Octagonal Building from my bedroom window, and I thought there must be a carousel inside. It seemed monstrously large as a kid.” It was built in 1907 for the fair that would take place on the new grounds the following year. Over the years, the building fell into disrepair, but in 2008, for the one hundredth anniversary of that first fair, a restoration was begun. The local home builders association and the fair board, of which Rudy was a member, were instrumental in the project.

According to Rudy, the building was used as a marker for pilots, as the fairgrounds also functioned as an airport. The field had been cleared of stones and stumps for the fair, creating a large area that was safe for landings. The flag at the top of the building would act as a windsock. Rudy shared a bit of lore, stating that if there was no flag present another way to determine the wind’s direction was to look at horses nearby, as they will stand facing into the wind to keep it out of their ears.

I had never met a clown, so I had to ask Rudy just a bit about his life. He bubbled over with excitement. “When we were kids, everyone else drew pictures of town, but I drew circus tents and elephants.” He left the fairground in 1952 with one of the largest circuses, but was soon drafted to go to Korea and returned to travel with another circus, then later with carnivals. “I patterned my life after Red Skelton,” he said. “You know, Freddie the Freeloader?” I left Cadillac smiling, having ended the day on just the right note.