Kentucky Classic #7: Wild Persimmon for Lucy Kemper West

 

Kentucky Classic #7, Wild Persimmon by Elsie Ridgley

Some design elements in these Kentucky Classic quilts are quite common, for example the roses with 8 lobes and the buds or fruit we are calling a Kentucky Paw-paw (see last month's block)...

Rose                    Fruit

Others like the Goldenrod (Block #4) seem unusual enough to offer a good clue to a Garrard County quilt.

A second distinctive regional element is this fruit full of dots.

Barb Eikmeier Collection

Found in Missouri

Zerelda Emmaline McClary Oliver (b ca. 1822)

Garrard County, Kentucky

Also seen in Missouri

findagrave.com/memorial/17145869/zerelda-emmaline-oliver

McCain Whig Rose

This month's pattern's inspiration is Lucy Kemper West's quilt 

in the DAR Museum, full of dots and fruit. 

Last month we discussed Lucy's niece Louisa West Jackman, 

a fellow Garrard County resident.

Lucy's husband Lysander West and Louisa's father Henry were brothers. 

Lucy Kemper was born in 1792 and died a few days after her 84th birthday in 1876. She was a generation older than some of the other quiltmakers discussed here, marrying Lysander West in 1812 and giving birth to 7 children before 1826. Husband Lysander died in 1840. 

Eldest son Lysander II joined many other Kentuckians in moving to Missouri before the Civil War settling in Cass County in the western part of the state near Kansas City. Others of her children and siblings also seemed to have lived and died in Missouri.

The quilt in the DAR Museum is said to have won a prize at the Missouri State Fair in 1926 although fair records do not mention any familiar names.

1926 State Fair, Sedalia

Perhaps Lysander brought the quilt to Missouri and his descendants entered it in the "Old Quilt" category. I wonder if it wasn't made by Lysander's wife Ruth Smith Logan West (1830-1924,) another Kentucky-born woman of the generation to have been making such fancy quilts in the 1850s.

The Block

Wild Persimmon

We could see the fruit that is so typical of these Garrard County quilts as a pineapple, except pineapples don't really have dots or grow in Kentucky. How about a native Kentucky persimmon full of seeds?

Wild Persimmons

Side-by-side set of 14"/15" blocks

Elsie Ridgley's blocks 1-7 with border. Two more to go.

The fruit full of seeds is the last pattern included in Becky Brown's Medallion Kentucky Classic.

Becky's finished top. She certainly added a bit to the basic pattern.

Spectacular!

The fruit goes over the corner seams. I'd guess if you enlarge the pattern 180% you will have the fruit and leaves.

A few relevant links:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/37403676/lucy-west

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2012/02/garrard-county-kentucky.html

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2023/05/kentucky-river-rose-pattern.html

https://quiltindex.org/view/?type=fullrec&kid=16-12-146

 

Denver Art Museum

Here's a modified medallion format with a looser arrangement.
Know nothing about it but it looks Kentucky classic to me.

The applique on that one seems to have been done with a herringbone stitch.

Amanda Moran's center image is not square. The fruit appliques do not rotate around the center either but are flipped.

Elefair Morrison's Civil War

 

Quilt associated with Elefair Morrison (1808-1863)

Historic Arkansas Collection

Elefair (Ellafair) is rather elusive. She died in Arkansas in the first years of the Civil War. The quilt attributed to her is intriguing.

She was born in Georgia in 1808 and in the 1860 census is shown living with her brother, well-to-do Daniel Morrison. Daniel emigrated to Arkansas from Georgia in 1835; Elefair may have accompanied him or joined him soon after. Daniel continued to be wealthy, listed with at least 24 enslaved people and thousands of acres of Arkansas. Interestingly enough the sister of this rich man is listed as a Seamstress.

Daniel Morrison and his enslaved laborers built a plantation complex on Watermelon Island in Hot Springs County. One structure remains, a stone smoke house now on the National Register of Historic Places.

Findagrave file:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/5308643/ellafair-morrison

Ellafair married Edward P. Kearby in 1853 when she was 45...

...although the marriage record says she is 38, two years older

than groom Dr. Kearby. It looks like Elefair supported herself as a seamstress after 

the end of that marriage.

Her tombstone is hard to read in the Findagrave file

but it seems no last name was included.

"Ellafair

Sister? of

Daniel Morrison"

In 1861 53-year-old Daniel Morrison (1809-1888) married 17-year-old Belle McLean.

Arabelle McLean Morrison (1844-1914)

Belle was Arkansas born. They soon migrated to Texas, hoping to protect their investment in people from emancipation by Union troops or "self-emancipation." Their first child of four was born in Texas. They returned to Watermelon Island after the war. Did Elefair accompany them? Perhaps the quilt descended in Belle's family of children with the information that it belonged to Daniel's seamstress sister.

The quilt (and it is quilted although some similar bedcovers are not) is

not in good shape; discoloration and fabric loss do not show off

the skillful applique.

Nine of these "Trophy of Arms" panels (a classic image of weapons and flowers) were trimmed and attached, framed by floral arcs. The overall set and fabrics look very much like a group of quilts made in Baltimore, Maryland, associated with Achsah Wilkins and pictured in William Rush Dunton's book about quilts he found in his hometown.

Did Elefair bring this bedcover with her to Arkansas from Georgia?

Was this quilt top made in Baltimore, perhaps a wedding gift in 1853?

Or did Elefair, a professional seamstress, make it herself after

observing similar quilts?

Many questions.

Sister-in-law Belle's unpublished diary written between 1865 and 1870 is in the collection of Digital Heritage.Arkansas.gov
https://digitalheritage.arkansas.gov/finding-aids/3375; https://digitalheritage.arkansas.gov/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4376&context=finding-aids
Her grave information:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/5308043/belle_mclean_morrison

More info from Arkansas Made

Washington Whirlwind # 9: Lady in the White House

Washington Whirlwind # 9: Lady in the White House by Becky Brown

Mary Todd Lincoln in mourning attire, which she wore most

of her life after Willie's death in 1862.

One of many imaginary portraits of the

Lincoln family: Eldest brothers Robert & Willie.

Last month we looked at Willie Lincoln's father Abraham's reaction to his

child's death---this month that of the Lady in the White House Mary Lincoln.

National Portrait Gallery

Benjamin Brown French (1800-1870) about 1870

Benjamin Brown French was Commissioner of Public Buildings in Washington during the Lincoln administration, but he also acted as an unofficial chief of protocol and was put in charge of funeral arrangements for Willie Lincoln. He kept a diary and recorded his visit to the White House during a downpour soon after Willie's death.

"I found everything properly arranged for the funeral. The body of little Willie lay in the Green Room…covered with beautiful flowers…. the terrible storm without seemed almost in unison with the storm of grief within, for Mrs Lincoln, I was told, was terribly affected at her loss and almost refused to be comforted.”

Lady in the White House by Elsie Ridgley

 French knew Mary Lincoln well. At White House receptions he had the job of officially introducing “the American Queen to her numerous and most brilliant visitors." His diary is rather restrained about the First Lady, commenting on her impressive dress for those occasions with descriptions like "[Mrs L] was ‘got up’ in excellent taste and looked the Queen."

Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly (1818-1907)

Elizabeth Keckly, who was the First Lady's principal dresser, seamstress and confidant, dictated her memories of the Lincoln years for a book published in 1868 as Behind the Scenes. Having lost her own soldier son in the first months of the war she was alarmed by Mary Lincoln's "paroxysms" of grief.

"I shall never forget the scene---the wails of a broken heart, the unearthly shrieks, the terrible convulsions, the wild tempestuous outbursts...."

Lady in the White House by Jeanne Arnieri

Willie's bereaved mother whose focus was always her own feelings did not leave her bedroom for weeks. Anything that reminded her of her loss sent her into hysterical grief. Descriptions of her behavior are those of a person suffering from what we recently recognize as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. 

Elizabeth Keckly remembered that any association such as Willie's picture or even mention of his name would:

 "move her to tears.....She never crossed the threshold of the [room] in which he died, or the Green Room in which he was embalmed" and laid out. "There was something supernatural in her dread of these things, and something that she could not explain."

Apparently these associations would bring flashbacks of the deathbed scene, which she could not forget. Unfortunately, she also could not bear to see the Taft boys. Willie's brother Tad, adapting to his mother's needs, began howling at the sight of them. Young friends Bud and Holly and sister Julia were not invited back to the White House. Their father, hoping to ease their trauma at losing a friend and being rejected by his family, sent all three children and their mother back to New York to live.

Julia Taft returned to Washington two years later and attended a reception, greeted by Mary Lincoln who:

“Seemed glad to see me again and was quite her old affectionate self, asking after my mother and the family. But when Tad came in and saw me, he threw himself down in the midst of the ladies and kicked and screamed and had to be taken out by the servants.”

Lady in the White House by Elsie Ridgley

Like her nurse Rebecca Pomroy, Mary eventually found some small solace in her religion, which in Mary's case was Spiritualism. Washington mediums summoned Willie's spirit "from behind the veil" at White House séances.

“Willie lives," she reported to her sister. "He comes to me every night and stands… with the same sweet, adorable smile he has always had. He does not always come alone. Little Eddie is sometimes with him… You cannot dream of the comfort this gives me.”

Lincoln's political enemies accused him of running the

White House and the war with a Cabinet of Spirits, "Bright Eyes" &

"Pinkie" among them. A skeptical man, Lincoln humored Mary

with occasional attendance at the events.

Read more about White House seances here:

http://www.mrlincolnswhitehouse.org/residents-visitors/marys-charlatans/ 

https://books.google.com/books?id=0Nc-DgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=willie+lincoln+death+president&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjKsp25nK_-AhWjlWoFHSbxAKMQ6AF6BAgGEAI#v=onepage&q&f=false

Lady in the White House by Denniele Bohannon

The Block

The block was given the name Lady in the White House by Famous Features, a mid-20th-century pattern syndicate. Earlier pattern companies called it Lady in the Lake inspiring many quilters in the 1900-1925 period to make a variation of the nine-patch in a four-patch.

Nine blocks---Elsie Ridgley