Civil War Commemorative Crazy Quilt

This crazy quilt was pictured on an online auction a month or two ago.

The block in the center of the quilt pictures the ribbon of the G.A.R., the Union veteran's organization. It's on the left in the detail above.

One would have to conclude this was a Civil War commemorative quilt.

There's also a Union shield next to it, but a Union shield alone is probably not enough evidence that the quilt  specifically commemorates the Civil War.

Michigan State University documented an elaborate crazy quilt with a Union shield in one block. I guessed it was a Civil War commemorative, but the quiltmaker Lena Lardner of Niles, Michigan, inked a patriotic inscription that really doesn't mention the war.

"From patriot sire to patriot son, Our flag is handed down, Thro' battles fought and victories won, It holds its old renown, And second only to the cross, Let this bright emblem be!, Thro' earthly gain and earthly loss, Our sign of Liberty! Mother July 31, 1889."

See more about this quilt here at the Quilt Index:

http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=1E-3D-1039

'

Lena Bogardus Phillips Lardner (1843-1919) 

The New York Public Library

 has a picture of Lena Lardner on their site

Curiosity aroused, I started poking around for information about Lena Lardner. She had a famous son, sports writer Ring Lardner,so there is much information about the family. Ringgold Wilmer Lardner was born in 1885, youngest of Lena and Henry's six children.

Lena's quilt describes her well.  The Lardners were well-to-do farmers and Henry, Jr. was a bank president. She was a society leader and a pious woman, daughter of an Episcopalian minister (and probably not pleased with Ring's chosen profession or lifestyle). She was also a published author, a poet, and raised her children with a love of literature.

I couldn't find any link to a Civil War solider whom she might have been recalling in this quilt. The county history describes her father Reverend Phillips

"He was thoroughly patriotic during the war and exercised a strong influence in the community by his vigorous support of the cause of the Union. At one time, by a few pertinent questions, he confounded a rash speaker, who in a large out-door assemblage. was proposing an armistice with the Confederates. The speaker attempted to evade for a time, but found it advisable at length to materially modify his ill-timed expressions, and practically collapsed. Mr. Phillips died in 1866. "

Her soldier brother William died of a fever in camp in March, 1862. If Henry Lardner was the "patriot sire" she was thinking of---there is no mention of his service in the War.

So I am thinking the Lardner quilt is a patriotic crazy quilt rather than a Civil War commemorative. Which child  it was made for isn't clear either. Lena had two daughters, Lena and Anna, and four sons William, Henry, Jr., Reginald and Ring.

The family's reasons for naming their youngest Ringgold have confused many. He may have been named after a relative, another Ringgold Lardner born in 1854. People have forgotten the source of that Ring Lardner's name but he may have been named for a hero of the Mexican War, Major Samuel Ringgold who died at the Battle of Palo Alto in 1846.  

Quilters who love Baltimore Album quilts probably know more about Major Ringgold than anybody but Mexican War scholars. He was memorialized on several quilts in the 1840s. Here's a block from one in the collection of the International Quilt Study Center and Museum inscribed in "Memory of Major Ringgold."

Well, I have to get back to work.

Civil War/Masonic Commemorative

In the Myrtle Beach episode of the PBS TV show Antique Roadshow they appraised a Masonic Quilt from after the Civil War with a great story. The maker was in the path of Sherman's March and saved her house and belongings from the Union soldiers by using secret information her Masonic husband had told her to use if she was threatened. Masons in Sherman's army gave her special treatment. In gratitude she made this Masonic quilt after the war.

Watch the appraisal episode here:

http://video.pbs.org/video/2336794071/

Here's a black and white shot of the same quilt

Ohio (Probably)

1880-1920

Collection: National Heritage Museum

On the topic of Masonic quilts:

There is a show of quilts and needlework with Masonic themes up at the National Heritage Museum which focuses on Masonic history. Threads of Brotherhood: Masonic Quilts and Textiles is up through the spring, 2013.

The Museum is in Lexington, Massachusetts.

Jane D. Haight Webster (1808-1877)

 Indiana, South Bend

1850-1877

Collection: National Heritage Museum

Today, Saturday March 16, Curator Aimee Newell will give a talk discussing "how women of the 1800s and 1900s demonstrated knowledge of Masonic values with their needles and created textiles that serve as lasting reminders of skills."

Read more here:

http://www.nationalheritagemuseum.org/Exhibitions/CurrentExhibitions/ThreadsofBrotherhood.aspx

http://nationalheritagemuseum.typepad.com/library_and_archives/freemasonry_and_women/

 http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/x1602170779/Symbols-of-Freemasonry-sewn-into-quilts-on-display-at-museum#ixzz2M0z7sMIx

The Museum has a quilt collection on the topic.

Do a search for the word quilt on their search page

http://mdsmobius.supremecouncil.org/info.php?s=quilt&type=all&t=objects

Photographs and Emancipation

Image from the cover of

Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and the End of Slavery

 by Deborah Willis and Barbara Krauthamer   

2013 marks the 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. In these times of little money for museum and other public exhibits it is good to find several shows devoted to the topic.

Emancipation Day Commemoration in Richmond, Virginia

The Schomburg Center at the New York Public Library is in the closing weeks of the show Visualizing Emancipation featuring 80 photos of  "enslaved and free black women, men, and children. The images record the presence of black soldiers and black workers in the American South and help the 21st century viewer reimagine a landscape of black people's desire to be active in their own emancipation." The show, which is related to the book by Kratuhamer and Willis, closes on March 16th. 

See a link here:

http://www.nypl.org/locations/tid/64/node/176527

Read more about the book at the Temple University Press site:

http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/2253_reg.html

The authors are on a book tour so you might find them speaking in a venue near you this month.

The New York Times had a recent article in the Antiques column by Eve M. Kahn,
"Photographic Artifact of Black Civil War Troops," which discussed several exhibits and books on the topic

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/22/arts/design/photographic-artifacts-of-black-civil-war-troops.html?pagewanted=all

Other photographic exhibits on the topic:

Boston's Museum of African American History commemorates the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and of the Massachusetts 54th Regiment, the first black soldiers from the north to serve in the American Civil War with an exhibit Freedom Rising, through December 2013  
http://www.afroammuseum.org/exhibits.htm#Freedom_Rising_2013


At the Smithsonian in Washington:
Bound for Freedom's Light: African Americans and the Civil War
Up through March 2 next year 2014
"To commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, the National Portrait Gallery presents [an] installation that  focuses on the roles that individual African Americans played during the course of this hard-fought conflict....includes vintage photographs and historic prints, the majority drawn from the collection of the National Portrait Gallery. The installation’s curator is Ann Shumard, senior curator of photographs at the museum."
See more here:
http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/exhbound.html

And on the general topic of the Civil War Sesquicentennial:
The National Portrait Gallery has several other exhibits up. Here is a list of shows up in Washington now and in the future. The individual links may work. Otherwise try this:
http://npg.si.edu/exhibit/cw/npgcivilwar.html

Mathew Brady’s Photographs of Union Generals

(March 30, 2012, through May 2015)
Washington During the Civil War
(Dec. 13, 2013, through Jan. 25, 2015)
Grant and Lee
(March 14, 2014, through April 19, 2015)
Alexander Gardner
(October 31, 2014, through May 3, 2015)

Frederic Edwin Church,  Our Banner in the Sky (detail), 

1861 from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum.

New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art has two Civil War anniversary displays scheduled for summer 2013.
The Civil War & American Art opens May 28 and closes September 2, 2013. "More than two hundred of the finest and most poignant photographs of the American Civil War have been brought together for this landmark exhibition."
Plus a selection of American prints reflecting Civil War themes, by Winslow Homer, Thomas Nast, and others from May 20–August 25, 2013.

And if you want to stay home---here's an online photo exhibit about women and the war from the University of Maryland.
Women on the Border: Maryland Perspectives on the Civil War

http://www.lib.umd.edu/civilwarwomen/exhibition/introduction_womenwar.html

Dixie Diary 3: Shouting Yankee Doodle

Block 3

Shouting Yankee Doodle 

8"  Version

A traditional pinwheel block, popular with quilters for generations, is the background for Sarah Morgan's satirical jabs at Union occupiers. The basic pattern is often called Broken Dishes, sometimes Yankee Puzzle.

Awaiting a Southern savior, Baton Rouge bristled under General Benjamin Butler's Union occupation. The Louisiana women defended the home front by showing contempt for the occupying army, spitting on the officers and insulting them.

The women of New Orleans also

spit at Butler's occupying Union soldiers.

From Harper's Weekly July 12, 1862

The Yankees told Sarah they would punish the mutinous women by making them sew for the Union army. Apparently, Sarah also held the social conversation of a sewing circle in contempt.

July 1, 1862, Baton Rouge

"I heard such a good joke last night!...These officers say the women talk too much, which is undeniable. They then said, they meant to get up a sewing society, and place in it every woman who makes herself conspicuous by her loud talking about them. Fancy what a refinement of torture! But only a few would suffer; the majority would be only too happy to enjoy the usual privilege of sewing societies, slander, abuse, and insinuations. How some would revel in it. The mere threat makes me quake!...

Oh, how I would beg and plead! Fifty years at Fort Jackson, good, kind General Butler, rather than half an hour in your sewing society! Gentle, humane ruler, spare me and I split my throat in shouting 'Yankee Doodle' and 'Hurrah for Lincoln!' Any, every thing, so I am not disgraced! Deliver me from your sewing society, and I'll say and do what you please!"

Detail of The Sewing Party 1857

By Louis Lang
Warner Foundation

A 12" version with a 1" frame, set on point 

By Sandi Brothers.

The pieced block has a BlockBase number.

BlockBase #1262a 

(Don't forget the "a" if you are searching by number.)

Names include Mosaic and Millwheel

Cutting 12":

A –  Cut 4 squares 6-7/8". 

Cut each into 2 triangles with 1 cut. 

Cutting 8":

A –  Cut 4 squares 4-7/8". 

Cut each into 2 triangles with 1 cut. 

Applique a star or a heart after piecing.

Winslow Homer drawing from Harper's Weekly.

A sewing bee was just one more

traditional woman's role that Sarah Morgan found confining.

Civil War Quilters: Loyal Hearts of Illinois

Floral Wreath Appliqué Quilt, ca. 1860
Made by Elizabeth (Sutherland) Jones (1793-1878)
Long Creek and Mt. Zion, Macon County, Illinois
Hand-appliquéd and quilted cotton
Collection of the Illinois State Museum. Gift of Mrs. Margaret Woodruff. 1974.17 (746931)

I see through one of my favorite blogs, WhatALoadAScrap, that the exhibit of Civil War quilts from the Illinois State Museum that was up in Chicago last year is now at the Illinois State Museum in Springfield.
http://whataloadascrap.blogspot.com/

This show, which seems to be expanded from the Chicago exhibit with other artifacts including weapons, costume and household goods from the era, will be up until September 8, 2013 

Here's the press release from the Museum:

http://www.museum.state.il.us/ismsites/main/pressroom.html?NPR=1196  

The Sentimental Quilter got to see the show in Chicago last summer (25 quilts) and here is a post about it

http://sentimentalquilter.blogspot.com/2012/09/quilt-exhibit.html

So did Violette

http://handquilting.blogspot.com/2012/10/civil-war-era-quilts-exhibition.html

The Illinois State Museum has a substantial collection of quilts.

See pictures of the collection here at the Quilt Index....388 of them!

http://www.quiltindex.org/search_results.php?page=1&page10=0&collection=Illinois State Museum

Don Beld's Reproduction Quilts on Display

Sanitary Commission Soldier's Aid

quilts from the cover of 

Civil War Quilts by Pam Weeks and Don Beld

Don Beld recently donated his collection of six reproduction Sanitary Commission quilts to the International Quilt Study Center and Museum. The Museum is showing them along with some of his  9/11 Tribute quilts.

Civil War U.S. Sanitary Commission Quilt Reproductions by Don Beld will be on display at the Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska,  from March 12, 2013 to August 18.

Click here:
http://www.quiltstudy.org/exhibitions/upcoming_exhibitions.html

Here is the 1864 original of a quilt made by a Soldier's Aid Society

And Don's reproduction.

Fanny Kreeger Hallar

A Kreeger family member recently sent me a link to this photo of Fanny Kreeger Hallar, probably taken about the time of her marriage to George Washington Hallar in 1876.

I was thrilled to see a picture of Fanny as she is someone I have been tracking for years.

One of the reasons I got interested in quilt history was this old pattern from the Kansas City Star in 1929. Columnist Ruby Short McKim of Independence, Missouri, told the story of the pattern she called Order Number Eleven, something she revised for her book 101 Quilt Patterns.

Notice the Order #11 block in my Circle of Friends

 quilt you readers made for me.

McKim told the story of Fannie Kreeger Haller (It's probably really spelled Fanny Kreeger Hallar), “a dear old lady in her eighties who was a little girl …back in war times [who'd] seen her mother’s choice new quilt snatched from the bed by marauders. She carried the memory of this striking pattern in her mind.... and years after reproduced the quilt, christening it 'Order No. 11'."

Having read a lot of far-fetched quilt history I was inspired to see if I could find out anymore about Fanny Kreeger Hallar. She indeed existed and following her trail led me into many more stories about the border wars in Kansas and Missouri before and during the Civil War.

A similar block dated 1849

Order Number Eleven was named for a Union order forcing Southern sympathizers to leave their homes in 1863 after Missouri Bushwhackers under the control of William Quantrill burned the pro-Union town of Lawrence, Kansas. The Federal Army issued the order evacuating four counties in western Missouri, permitting Union soldiers and guerillas to terrorize families into leaving by burning their homes and stealing their possessions. The roads south and east of Kansas City were filled with frightened and angry refugees, among them the Kreeger family of Lone Jack, Missouri, who lost their Hickory Leaf quilt to the enforcers.

Martha Frances Kreeger was born August 21, 1853 in Lone Jack, Missouri, near Independence. She was just ten when her family had to leave their farm. Her obituary told about their trip east into Missouri. They drove with "an ox team to Davis, Lafayette County, Mo., staying there the following winter. When they crossed the Tebo River in Lafayette County the oxen were so thirsty, they broke from the drivers' control and plunged into the stream." Fanny was able to follow that path many years later in an automobile.

In her early twenties she married widower George Washington Hallar. Buried near her are two young children Willie and Mable. In 1884 a daughter Aileen Hallar was born. Aileen survived and outlived her mother.

Wash Hallar (1836-1903) farmed near Blue Springs in Jackson County, Missouri. He also carried mail for the government overland from Independence to Salt Lake City before the Civil War.  Like many other young men of Jackson County, Missouri he and his brothers allied themselves with the Bushwhackers,  proslavery guerilla fighters. After the national Civil War began brothers William and James Albert (Abe or Ab) joined forces with William Quantrill's troops and 21-year-old William was killed in April, 1863. Abe is counted among the men who rode with Quantrell to burn the town of Lawrence, Kansas, in August, 1863. He was shot and killed a month later at the age of 20.

Brother Oliver survived the Civil War but led a troubled and violent life. He killed his wife Alice Noland Hallar and her "paramour" in Pueblo, Colorado in 1883. An alternate family tale (see the comments) is that he shot her accidentally while trying to kill a boarder in her Denver boarding house in 1888. Ten years later he shot himself.

Whether Wash rode with the Lawrence raiders is a little vague but he was one of the group who met with Quantrill's mother when she visited the Kansas City area in 1888.

The Kreeger family had members just as wild as the Hallars---it was an epidemic along the Kansas/Missouri border. Robert A. Silva wrote to say he is publishing a biography of his ancestor Lewis M. Kreeger, titled Lead in Trinidad. Lewis Kreeger, a cousin of Fanny's, was said to have ridden with Quantrill and served as sheriff in Trinidad, Colorado at the end of the century. Bob wrote and asked if I knew where those quilts made by Fanny's mother Araminta Daniel Kreeger were.

I wish.

He is querying his cousins and perhaps some antique Hallar/Kreeger quilts will show up.

Somehow Fanny and Wash Hallar managed to put the Civil War behind them, although they carried the memories. They lived near Blue Springs, I think, in this handsome house that Wash began during the war. His obituary said he "built the old Proctor residence and nearly every brick house in the eastern part of (Jackson) County for fifteen years after the War." Wash died in 1903 in his late 60s. The house was still standing when I drove down Woods Chapel Road a few years ago.

Fanny lived on in Independence with her daughter and told at least two stories about quilts to Ruby McKim, but she didn't live to see the tales in print. Her mother's Seth Thomas Rose pattern appeared in the Star on October 12, 1929, a few weeks after Fanny's obituary. Order Number Eleven was published November 23rd.

I write about the Kreeger quilts a lot, because they are such a fascinating link to local history.
Here are some prior posts:

http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2011/10/40-order-number-eleven.html
http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2011/10/northern-lilysouthern-rose-block-8
html
http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2011/11/seth-thomas-rose-quilt-in-oregon.html
http://www.pickledish.com/2010/06/02/book-of-the-week-borderland-in-butternut-and-blue/