Great Grandmother’s Periwinkle quilt
“I didn’t know about the quilt top until several years after Laura Goff had died. But my great-grandmother and I—the first and last of our family strand of oldest daughters—ended up sewing by hand on this same quilt.
“At the same time, I was drawn deeper into my family’s history.
“Born shortly after the Civil War, in a Guthrie County log cabin west of Monteith, Laura Jordan was already a fourth-generation Iowan, but the first born in the state. When she grew up and became a country schoolteacher, Laura bought a gold watch so she could ring the school bell to call the children to class on time.
“When Great Grandmother Laura died in 1962 (I was a freshman in college), the Periwinkle quilt top lay folded in a closet in the little house on N. 4th Street in Guthrie Center.
“In 1890, when Laura married Milton Sheridan “Sherd” Goff, she had to retire from teaching. She no longer needed the gold watch so she traded it to her father for something she needed more—a cow.
“No one wanted the quilt top of colorful pointy patches, set together with ecru octagons, with raw seams underneath. Well, the angle of the diamond-shaped pieces wasn’t quite right. The thing would not lie flat. As the quilter in the family, I was offered the curiously lumpy thing. . . . “
The entire story was first published in Grit Magazine, September 19, 1999, and also aired on Our American Stories in March 2021.
This story is in Chapter 4 of The Immigrant and the Outlaw: A Collection of Stories from America’s Heartland. Available from Amazon.com and Amazon.uk.
You may also find Laura Arminta (Jordan) Goff’s stories in Chapter 5 of Meadowlark Songs: A Motherline Legacy. See Amazon.com and Amazon.uk.
Is there anything you can’t do?
Bless you, Dave. These stories are from decades ago, but they still have legs. (Hey, my #aginggratefully legs carried me on a 3-block mosey just now.)
Truly a multi-generational project and a very pretty quilt!
Thank you, Linda. The only thing better than an heirloom is one with a story, huh!
Hi Joy, this is such an interesting story about the quilt. I love quilts and my dad was a quilter. Do you have other quilts you’ve made?
Robbie, thank you. I hope you have your dad’s quilts! I used to do a lot of it, all by hand. https://www.pinterest.com/joynealkidney/quilts/
I remember my Granny making quilts. To get her material she used to go up on foothill above Capulin. Before we ever had a county dump, people used to go up there just dump their trash. This often times included worn out jeans and shirts. She’d gather them all up, wash them, cut them up, and they’d make patchwork quilts.
She had a frame that she kept in a back room (Unassembled of course), screw it together, and she was in business.
I’d kill to have one of her quilts today.
What a great story, except for the part that you don’t have one of them. Dad’s mother and sisters were the real quilters, so each cousin got their own when they were married. I also have the one Grandma Neal made for my folks when they were married! Her quilts were made from scraps from sewing dresses, etc.
The Periwinkle is a wonderful example of your family’s quilting skills-and passed down through four generations! 🙂
Well, it skipped Mom and her mother! Dad’s mother, Grandma Ruby Neal, and her daughters were the quilters! Grandma made quilts for her grandchildren when they got married, and I have the one she made for my folks in 1943! One of my younger Neal cousins owned a quilting shop for several years.
You did an amazing job of fixing and finishing Laura’s quilt! I hope hand quilting doesn’t become a lost art. I have two made-made quilts from my great-grandmother’s Nova Scotia homestead. I have them displayed on a rod with a shelf above it. Both are red and white. They make a nice spot of color at the foot of the stairs.
Hand quilting is done, I’m afraid. Even my cousin who owned a quilt shop for several years specialized in machine quilting. You have a couple of treasures! And red and white!
I remember them from the Cape Elizabeth cottage my grandparents had. They were on the cots in the little room under the eaves I slept in when we visited.
Goosebumps!
🥰
It came out so pretty in the end. I have a quilt of that pattern by my great-aunt.
The only thing better than an heirloom is one with a story, right?
Absolutely! I wish I had a story for my quilt.
It’s great that you could get together with your great-grandmother, Joy, and so nice that you finished that quilt.
Thank you, Tim. She lived until my freshman year of college. I knew she crocheted, but I didn’t know about the quilt top until 25 years later!