Anna's Choice by Dorry Emmer
8" block in the colors of her winter garden
Anna Bronson Alcott Pratt (1831-1893)
It's not hard to spot Anna as an Alcott with her
mother's pretty hair and determined look.
Like her sister Louisa, Anna was not satisfied with that pleasant face and thought of herself as plain, as did Edward Emerson who lived across the road when they were growing up. (Perhaps he liked a flashier type like the youngest May.)
Anna's Choice by Becky Brown
Meg married in the 1949 film
Anna's beautiful wedding dress is periodically on display at Orchard House.
"So she made her wedding gown herself, sewing into it the tender hopes and innocent romances of a girlish heart. Her sisters braided up her pretty hair, and the only ornaments she wore were the lilies of the valley, which 'her John' liked best of all the flowers that grew." Little Women.
John Bridge Pratt (1833-1870)
Marriage record, 1860
His parents Minot and Maria Pratt were Concord residents in the antebellum years with strong abolitionist reputations. Minot was a respected agricultural expert, two common interests with the Alcotts. After her sister Elizabeth died in 1858 Anna went to stay with the Pratts and soon she and John Pratt announced an engagement. They married two years later, rather old for their times; she was 29, John two years younger.
John Pratt did not enlist; he occupied his Civil War years as a bookkeeper, a job he did not enjoy, but like his wife he saw his duty, which was supporting her and their two boys born in 1863 and 1865.
Anna's Choice by Denniele Bohannon (16")
Those boys tells us much about how Anna spent her war years---probably rather happily, although there was never enough money and her husband supposedly had a temper.
1865 ad for Annie's father-in-law's agricultural business.
Annie spent some of the Civil War years living at the "Pratt Farm." Harriet Reisen in her Louisa biography indicated Annie and John had financial difficulties during the war, repeating her parents' "old pattern of moving from one untenable living situation to the next...the boys and Anna squeezed into Orchard House or the Pratt farm for months at a time while John boarded near his current job and joined them on weekends."
Anna's Choice (BlockBase #1141a) is the perfect star to remember the bride. The block is pieced of one triangle, shaded and turned to make an eight-pointed star with no Y seams.
The Pratts' sons continued the family tradition of amateur theatricals.
Here they are in their early 20s.
The Block
Anna's Choice from a late 19th-century Pennsylvania quilt
Anna's Choice (BlockBase #1141a) is the perfect star to remember the bride. The block is pieced of one triangle, shaded and turned to make an eight-pointed star with no Y seams.
Cutting: The HST triangle C.
8” Block (2-Inch Grid) C—Cut 16 squares 2-7/8”. Cut each into 2 triangles with one diagonal cut. You need 32 of different shades.
12” Block (3” Grid)
C—3-7/8”
16” Block (4” Grid)
C—4-7/8”
Anna's Choice by Georgann Eglinski
Post Script
"She is just the sweet dear woman you knew in the old days, so kind loving & patient with my many faults and peculiar ways."
Anna's Choice by Pat Styring
John also reveals in that letter that she lost her hearing in her thirties. Annie "as you probably know is deaf, almost entirely so, so that she is cut off from the world that most people enjoy, and yet so cheerful and uncomplaining through all...."
They were then living in Maplewood in the city of Malden, about 20 miles from Concord, "quite a pleasant country place" and John was commuting by rail to his bookkeeping job, a frustrating life.
This February, 1870 letter to Alf Whitman, perhaps John's last surviving
letter, is in the collection of the Harvard Library.
More than bored, John seems in despair despite his love for his wife and sons.
And within the year he was dead.
Anna's Choice in my new Ladies Legacy fabrics...
should be in shops....
The "Old Thoreau House" still stands.
Here the widowed Anna raised her two boys, 7 & 5 when their father died.
"He was only ill a few hours, and died as he has lived, so cheerfully, so peacefully, that it seems a sin to mar the beauty of it with any violent or selfish grief. We were in time to say good-by: and Daisy and Demi were in his arms as he fell asleep on Aunt Meg's breast. No more now, I cannot bear it."
And that literally is all we know.
As one blogger Compulsive Confessions wants to know:
"What in the name of ever loving hell does John Brooke die of in Little Men? It's like one day he's walking around all lalalalala and the next day he's dead. Quickly. In The Night."
Well, I'm not going to guess but you might want to. Poor Anna.
Bad news.
Vintage examples
255 Main Street, Concord
You can't miss Anna's house. It's yellow.
A Stellar Set
I drew up a strip set in EQ8 for the 12" blocks, which when turned on point make a 17" strip. Alternated the three pieced strips with four plains strips finishing to 10".
12" blocks
68" wide x 91" long.
And there are always borders.
STRIP SET: 68” x 91”
12” Blocks set with 10” wide strips
Fabric: Buy at least 2 yards for the 4 strips cut 10-1/2” x 68-1/2”. More if you want to fussy cut stripes.
2 yards for light blue setting triangles.
Cutting the Setting Triangles
You need 18 large triangles (light blue here)
12” Blocks set with 10” wide strips
Fabric: Buy at least 2 yards for the 4 strips cut 10-1/2” x 68-1/2”. More if you want to fussy cut stripes.
2 yards for light blue setting triangles.
Cutting the Setting Triangles
You need 18 large triangles (light blue here)
For the ends you need 12 smaller triangles. Cut 6 squares 9-3/8” and cut each into 2 triangles.
Graves in Sleepy Hollow cemetery in Concord
Further Reading
Harriet Reisen's Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women is a clear-eyed, contemporary look at the Alcotts and their rough edges. She uses behavioral psychology to give us a view of the precarious mental health of these very creative people: Louisa's depressions and mania, Bronson's psychosis and Abba's despair. See a preview here:
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