Rebecca Stoner Rosen's Civil War

Flying Geese Quilt attributed to Rebecca Jane Stoner Rosen (1838-1921)

79" x 94"

Quilts of Virginia

When the Civil War began 23-year-old Rebecca Rosen had been married to David Harrison Rosen for about 6 years and had two young sons, James and David L, born the month the war commenced. (Some accounts tell us there were three boys.) David I was a carpenter, contracting to build houses and barns in their neighborhood in northern Rockbridge County, Virginia.

The 1860 census shows David & Rebecca with 4-year-old James

living among her Stoner relatives.

In July, 1861 the husband she married at 17 was "fearfully wounded," in the first battle of Bull Run according to his 1929 obituary. Wounds must have healed as he re-enlisted the following year in the Fourth Virginia Infantry Regiment of the Confederate Army: Stonewall Brigade of the Liberty Hall Volunteers where he remained until the Confederate surrender.

 

Tombstones in the graveyard of the "Old  Providence A.R.P. Church" they attended tell us a little of her Civil War experiences.

When a diphtheria epidemic raged through the area sons James and David L. died within three weeks of each other.

FindaGrave

James's tombstone is hard to read. The death date 

is 1864 not 1861, when he was 8.

David died at the end of November at age 3 years, 7 months and 14 days; James on December 11th at 8 years, 8 months and 6 days as their markers lovingly count. Baby Cornelia born in 1864 survived. After the war Rebecca gave birth to three long-lived daughters, Cora (born 1869), Flora (1872) and Lola (1876.) 

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The census also tells us that David was farming with land worth about $3,000. Three older females lived in the house. Elizabeth Stoner (1883-1886) at 66 was Rebecca's mother.

Eighty-one year-old Margaret Minnick McClelland (1788-1875), a fellow church member, is not easily identified as a relative so she may have been a boarder. And 13-year-old Sarah E Stoner---one of Rebecca's nieces?

Rebecca Stoner Rosen (1838-1912), probably early 20th century.

Rebecca lived to be 74.

Their farm Maple Grove was in a community named Raphine, Virginia in Rockbridge County near the Augusta County line. The unusual name had been given to his family home by neighbor James E. A. Gibbs (1829-1902), famous as co-inventor of the Willcox Gibbs machine, a rotary hook chain-stitch sewing machine. Raphine Hall was derived from the Greek ραφις  rhaphis, (also raphis and rhapis) which means needle.

Rhapis excelsa a palm with needle-like leaves

The Rosen family at Maple Grove from Virginia Quilts

The caption tells us this paper photo dates to 1850 but clothing and photographic format indicates it's much later in the 19th century if not early 20th. Rebecca may be the woman on the left. The women wearing hats are visitors, perhaps daughters.

Granddaughter Margaret Rosen Fulwider Mynes (1920-2012) showed her family quilts

to the Virginia project team. She and the documenters thought the first two might

be from 1870; the one on the right from 1880. Margaret was the daughter of Grace Lola Rosen Fulwider, Rebecca's youngest.

The triple sash and cornerstone set is typical of Southern quilts made

after 1880, which is likely to be the date of all three. As Rebecca lived until

1912 these 1880-1900 quilts could all of been her work as Margaret thought.

The 1900 census captured them living with daughter Grace Lola who was 24

and a boarder. The numbers to the left of the word Virginia on Rebecca's line indicate they'd been married 44 years; she'd given birth to 7 children and 4 were still living.

Dorothea Lange photo, 1936

Library of Congress