BIBLE HISTORY QUILTS – Around The Frame

It’s been nearly a month since The News Sentinel featured the front page article: ‘Unique’ quilt caused shop owner to pull cover off mystery, revealing ties to News-Sentinel, Hall of Fame. Here’s a synopsis: The article tells the story of a quilt contest held by The News Sentinel back in 1927-28 for girls to compete for cash awards by making Bible block quilts based on the designs of Ruby Short McKim.

A quilt top featuring the Bible blocks was dropped off at Born Again Quilts back in 2012 by a friend of mine along with a June 8, 1974, News Sentinel article featuring Berenice (Gross) Bonar of Churubusco.

Back in 1928, 20-year-old Berenice was too old to compete but she liked the blocks and started making a set in blue and white. As so often happens, life gets in the way of leisure activities and the project was set a side until decades later when she rediscovers it and finishes it in her mid-sixties.

Fast forward to May, 2015: The Waynedale News reader Vicki Fox snags a biblical quilt made of red and white blocks at the recent Lutheran Life Village’s rummage sale. Vicki knew they represented stories from the Old Testament but she wasn’t familiar with all of them. She brings it to BAQ and reads the 1974 article and compares her quilt to the top: her find is indeed a McKim biblical quilt.

Click to advertise on this website

Once the N-S article is published, I call Alex Kiefer at Lutheran Life Villages to make certain the article is posted on their Facebook page in hopes the person who donated it will come forward and Vicki can learn its history. Alex hadn’t seen the article so he skims it and comments, “My daughter has a quilt of similar blocks on her bed. It was made by my wife’s mother or grandmother.” Alex sends me photos and the salmon pink colored quilt blocks do look like McKim designs. Like Berenice, each of the scenes has the title neatly embroidered below it. One difference is one photo shows a block of “the tomb”. Did Ruby design a set of New Testament blocks too? I ask Ruby’s granddaughter Merrily McKim Touhey who writes, “Grammy did not design any New Testament blocks, just the 24 blocks in the Bible History series. Other designers from her generation designed bible quilts also.” Some time I’d like to see the entire quilt to determine whether it is made of all 24 McKim designs with added blocks, for now, unknown origin.

Next out of the blue Rosemary Berry, Berenice’s daughter calls. A librarian at the Churubusco Library recognized her name and alerted her to the article. Rosemary relates to me the excitement of having her mother featured not only in The News Sentinel but the Huntington Herald Press too. I learn Berenice lived to be nearly 85 years old, passing away in 1993. She tells me once Berenice finished the biblical quilt in 1974 as attested by her hand-embroidered label, she kept it up embroidering the state flowers and state birds quilts along with a special turtle quilt for her brother John who loved the “Beast of Busco” turtle lore.

It was indeed a pleasure when Rosemary and her daughter Janet visit the BAQ studio and bring the quilt. It was a pleasure to examine her excellent embroidery and quilting skills and to learn about her life in stitches. They show me their laminated copy of the 1974 article and we commiserate because the photo published in black and white, deprives readers of seeing it in all its beauty.

We are asking The Waynedale News readers to contact us at the information below if you:
1) Donated the Bible quilt to the Lutheran Life Village Rummage Sale
2) Own a Bible quilt: we would like to document its history
3) Know who won The News Sentinel quilt contest back in 1927-28
Who knows? We may mount an exhibit so everyone can enjoy them.

Lois Levihn owns Born Again Quilts. You may contact her at bornagainquilts@frontier.com or 260-515-9446.