Kentucky Classic # 4: Kentucky Goldenrod for Belle Robinson
by Elsie Ridgley
Mother & daughter by Alice Huger Smith
Alice painted and drew her South Carolina neighbors in the early 20th century.
The interviewees who'd been held in slavery before 1865 were over 70, most of them children before the Emancipation Proclamation.
Texan Tempie Cummins was probably a young child in 1865.
Some interviewees were photographed.
The transcript of her discussion with local teacher and historian Eliza Ison is brief. Eliza found Belle working on a quilt when the visit began.
The 1880 census shows two adjacent households in the town of Lancaster. Belle, unmarried at 26, and two children---4 year old Betsy and 3-year-old William---are living with Joseph & Frances Beeler and several other adults who work for the Beelers. Belle is a servant.
The goldenrod pattern's loosely based on this version in a repeat block quilt, attributed to Millie Anderson McCain of Marion County. She included the carnation, fruit, roses and buds gathered in a very small container.
One appealing design idea in these quilts, as we have noted, is the absurdly small vase. You may want to substitute Lucy's pink vase below for the taller vase in the Goldenrod pattern.
“I was born June 3rd, 1853 in Garrard County near Lancaster. My mother’s name was Marion Blevin and she belonged to the family of Pleas Blevin. My father’s name was Arch Robinson who lived in Madison County."
The white Robinsons were wealthy landowners with many enslaved people throughout the area. One of their plantations was taken over by the Union as a recruiting and training station named Camp Dick Robinson. See pattern #3 for more about Camp Dick Robinson:
Belle spent much of her life with Mary Ann Beeler Brady (about 1821-?) and her family. The 1860 census found Mary Ann Brady at 39 living with an 18-year old hired hand John Ballard and one invisible person, listed on the separate slave schedule as an unnamed 7-year old female who must have been Belle. When Harrison Brady died his human property probably went to his heirs and not his wife, who bought Belle from the estate.
"When Mr. Brady died and his property was sold Mrs. Brady bought me back; and she always said that she paid $400 for me. I lived in that family for three generations, until every one of them died. I was the only child and had always lived at the big house with my mistress."
A "small gal" by Alice Huger Smith
"The Servant" by Alice Huger Smith
Next door is Mary A. Spratt age 60. This may be Mary Ann Beeler Brady and a second husband Solomon Spratt (1820-1894), married in 1861, or perhaps one of Mary Ann's birth daughters. Nobody looks very prosperous 15 years after the end of the Civil War.
Later censuses find Belle living with Grand Anderson and his wife (Muriel?) probably Belle's daughter and four children. Belle's employed as a cook in 1920. In 1930 she was running a boarding house on East 5th Street in Lancaster and has assets worth $1,000. In 1940 at 85 she was again living with the Anderson family, probably where interviewer Eliza Ison found her stitching a quilt.
Belle Robinson left far too much unsaid. Our current take on slavery's economic system and its inherent personal tragedies gives us little insight to the relationship of Belle and her white "family." She obviously took pride in connections that gave her a sense of who she was in this world. We cannot hope to understand the social customs and norms of the time.
The Block
#4 Kentucky Goldenrod
The various Kentucky appliques sometimes include this yellow-orange
floral. We have no idea what it represents but let's call it a
goldenrod, Kentucky's state flower, chosen for Belle, a native Kentuckian.
One version appliqued with an embroidery stitch.
Kentucky State Historical Society
The Kentucky Historical Society owns 5 of Millie's quilts.
Lucy Kemper West
DAR Museum
One appealing design idea in these quilts, as we have noted, is the absurdly small vase. You may want to substitute Lucy's pink vase below for the taller vase in the Goldenrod pattern.
I'd add a third flower or enlarge the original two a bit so it looks like the whole thing is going to topple over. Also see the little vase in pattern #2.
4 blocks finishing to 15" in the side-by-side set.
No medallion pattern this month.
Margaret Brodie McClain added a ribbon-like frame around
her center block with goldenrod and fruit sprouting from it.
Her quilt was found in Missouri.
"Patty"
The black & white illustrations by Alice Huger Smith are from Elizabeth Waties Allston Pringle's book
A Woman Rice Planter.
A Woman Rice Planter.
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