Civil War Quilts: Liberty's Birds #3: Cardinal

Liberty's Birds #3: Cardinal by Denniele Bohannon

Cardinals live year round in Kansas. We usually see them in pairs; males a flash of red, females less brilliant. Sara Lawrence Robinson may have enjoyed seeing their bond as she had made a life-long pairing herself.

Sara Tappan Doolittle Lawrence at about 20 years old

In her teens Massachusetts-born Sara attended Salem Academy where she fell on the stairs and hurt her back, injuring her enough that she returned home to Belchertown where she was bedridden and, so the story goes, afflicted with a "sympathetic blindness." A novice doctor who specialized in homeopathy and other innovative practices was called in and he decided it was a case for electric shock therapy.

Sara recovered her mobility and her sight. It might have been Doctor Charles Robinson himself who was the cure. They married eight years later. Sara was his second wife. His first, another Sarah, was Sarah Adams Robinson whom he married in 1843. By 1846 Sarah Adams Robinson and their two infants had died.

From Family Search

During the goldrush Charles traveled overland to California where he was jailed for his radical views on slavery, land distribution and civil disobedience but elected a state representative.

Sara Lawrence and Charles Robinson married in October, 1851

when she was about 24 and he about 33. A few months later they began

an antislavery newspaper in Fitchburg.

Fitchburg in 1867

The Liberator, the premiere abolitionist paper, occasionally

noticed them.

They sold the Fitchburg News after a year.

Cardinal by Susannah Pangelinan

Susannah's set is part of her background. The applique

glides over the seam lines.

Charles and Sara seem to have been a devoted, loving couple. Patricia Michaelis wrote an article about ten years ago touching on their relationship: "Lawrence in Perspective: A Love Story." As archivist at the Kansas Historical Society, Pat read many of their letters, written during their frequent trips back east when one or the other was feeling neglected.

"If you know how my heart yearns for your presence, & how much of the time my thoughts are with you, you would not think me too cold.... I do love you most fervently & will try in future to make you realize it at all times. I hope to leave for Kansas this week if I can get through in Boston. In the mean time I am your own loving husband."
Charles to Sara, September, 1857