Quilts: Warm and Cozy, Artistic and Storied (or, Stitches in Time: Quilts and Their Stories)

 It’s finally Fall and the nights, if not yet the days, are getting cold. If you’re lucky, that could mean time to put some handmade quilts on the beds.  

Quilts originally were a practical winter necessity, but their designs and the selections of fabrics reflect individual taste and ability, and raise the quilt from a practical item for warmth to a beautiful American folk art. Vintage quilts are cherished artifacts and family heirlooms that represent family and community history. The Bossier Parish Libraries History Center is fortunate to have a collection of local and regional quilts, or photographs and documentation of quilts, and to have learned the stories of many of them 

A wave-pattern quilt from circa 1930 that had been loaned to the History Center by Sandy Todaro, was made by the lender’s grandmother. The grandmother was born in 1885 and was mother to 10 or 11 children. She gave each of her children five quilts when they married. For the backs of quilts, she often used flour sacks that she dyed herself. The sacks were never in short supply. In making bread and biscuits for her large family, she went through roughly three fifty-pound flour sacks a week. 

From our Beverly Anderson collection we also have a faded-to-pink, blue, and white quilt that was made by the Methodist Woman's Missionary Society of Plain Dealing, Louisiana in order to raise funds for a new church building in 1923. Named “The Friendship Quilt,” it has eighty-four names embroidered on it. The quilters embroidered each name in their square and used the circle to identify the quilter. There are a total of 20 squares, five across and four wide. A booklet called “Friendship Quilt: First Methodist Church Plain Dealing 1923” is included in the collection.  

Louise Hanisee McAnn donated two crazy quilt blocks dating to the 1880s. The luxurious fabrics were collected by a fashionable dressmaker in Vicksburg, MS, who used the lovely “scraps” for crazy-quilting. The origin of crazy quilts may be linked to the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876, where Japanese art and furnishings were exhibited and popularized. Seeking to replicate the asymmetry found in some Japanese art, quilters and women's publications encouraged the making of crazy quilts. Although seemingly random and made from scraps, many crazy quilts were carefully planned, highly embellished, and used the finest fabrics. The fancier crazy quilts were not meant solely as bedcovers but as decoration or as a tribute to the maker's skill. 

Some of the History Center’s quilts or their stories and images are more recent. They include a handsewn quilt from about 1994 that has black and white fabric for the backing and squares with mixed media including a quote from Hamlet, rhinestones, and buttons. A handwritten label on the quilt calls it “The ‘Homeless’ Quilt.” It was created by Janet Foss, who was inspired by a friend's struggles with homelessness.  

We also have a quilt made by the staff members of the Bossier Parish Library Children's Department in 2000 to celebrate the millennium year. Each child who signed the quilt also drew a picture of a book that he or she read during the 2000 Reading Club program. Though the marker drawings are fading, it is a delight to see. A beautiful yet more somber quilt for which we have photos is a red, white and blue patriotic quilt that The Shady Ladies Club (a homemakers’ club of the Shady Grove neighborhood in Bossier City) presented to the Pentagon after September 11, 2001.  

Various groups, or “tributaries,” of the Red River Quilters organization have met for years, and continue to meet, in the History Center or Central Library. The group’s very first meeting was March 8, 1983 in a room of the Pierre Bossier Mall. In our collection we have photos from one of their annual quilt shows, QuiltFest, that document an astounding variety of patterns.  

Do you have a Bossier Parish or North Louisiana quilt story or photos to share? Come see or call us at the History Center. Or visit the Bossier Parish Libraries History Center in-person or online for numerous photos of locally-made quilts, both historic and more contemporary. The History Center open M-Th 9-8, Fri 9-6, and Sat 9-5. Our phone number is (318) 746-7717 and our email is history-center@bossierlibrary.org 

Article by: Pam Carlisle

Photos: 

1: A.J. Allison family in 1894. Note the beautiful quilt hanging on the fence behind the family.

2: Plain Dealing Methodist Church “Friendship Quilt” from 1923

3: “Shady Ladies” club members working on a quilt that was presented to the Pentagon following September 11, 2001.

For other fun facts, photos, and videos, be sure to follow us @BPLHistoryCenter on FB, @bplhistorycenter on TikTok,