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MEMORIAL QUILTS:

EXPRESSIONS OF

REMEMBRANCE

The Remember Quilt pattern was created by designers Mary Hoover and Barbara Persing at 4th & 6th Designs, part of a fund raising initiative for Operation Homefront.

GRAVEYARD QUILTS other women set up the frame and quilted all day. First they quilted the
lining for the casket, and then they made a tiny little quilt out of the
FOR MOURNING blue to cover the baby.” If there was no wood for a coffin as occurred
at times when pioneers were traveling west, the deceased might have
By Judy Anne Breneman, womenfolk.com been wrapped in a quilt replacing the coffin.
Quilts have also been used in the laying out of the deceased for
Before modern medicine the loss of beloved friends and family viewing. Other times quilts were used to drape the coffin during the
members was all too familiar. Childbirth was dangerous and it was a funeral service. The quilt used might have been a lovely family quilt or
rare mother who didn't lose one or more children. Husbands were lost a special quilt owned by the church. In all these situations, quilts served
through war or accident. Bereavement was a part of everyday life. to convey a sense of comfort, and when family quilts were used, a sense
of connection to the deceased’s beloved family.

Quilts Made in Memory of Those Who Passed On
Another way quilts provided comfort for the grieving was through
memorial quilts made to remember the deceased. Many such quilts
contained bits of clothing that had belonged to the lost loved one.
Sometimes the quilt was made in the form of a friendship quilt with
inscriptions by friends and family. The very act of working on such a
quilt would have been a healing activity for bereaved women. The
finished quilt became a comforting memory.

Elizabeth Roseberry Mitchell (1799-1857) medallion quilt picturing a cemetery
and coffins in the center. Collection of the Kentucky Historical Society,
Donated in 1959 by her granddaughter
Nina Aura Mitchell Biggs (1866-1968), a local historian and writer.

Ways Quilts Were a Comfort in Grief
There was little that could be done in the face of many diseases. We
tend to hope that families were able to cope with these losses better than
we do today. After all, families of the past would have been so much
more familiar with losing loved ones. But old letters and diaries tell that
the pain of grief is timeless. Civil War Memorial Quilt from the Quilt Index
Quilts could offer some small comfort in these times of grief. One and the Massachusetts project.
elderly woman remembers her mother getting some precious blue silk out Each of the white strips and the stars are inscribed with the
of her own hope chest when a neighbor’s baby died. “Mama and three name of a Massachusetts soldier, his company and the date he enlisted.

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