2025, Family, History, home, Kids, Uncategorized

Remnants

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My mother and her four paternal aunts (Lena, Meta, Bertha, and Greta) spent a great deal of time in the mid-1930’s filling my mother’s Hope Chest with patchwork quilts they sewed. They used cloth scraps from their own and others’ unneeded clothing as well as larger pieces for backing. Mom never really used them and just kept them in her cedar chest.

I started using them after Husband and I married. There were four of them. One is still in tremendous shape and we have it on a bed in the basement. The quilts worked best as blankets under the bedspread as they are all sized for double beds. Two of the quilts disintegrated after about 10 years. I decided to preserve the third one and patched it as best I could and put on a new backing. I hung it on the wall in my work office for many years until time and gravity started it to sag and tear at the seams.

It has been in a cabinet in my new office until I started to clean and get rid of stuff preparatory to my retirement. I took the quilt out to our van and left it there to be used as part of winter survival gear

Husband brought it into our son’s house when we were visiting there last week, and our grandson insisted that we put it on his bed, and he slept under it every night we were in Brookings. Mind you, it hadn’t been laundered in 25 years, and was probably full of dust, but grandson loved it and wasn’t happy when we took it home. I told him I wanted to patch it better and we would bring it back to him at our next visit. It dawned on me that the quilt is about 90 years old. My mother and her aunts would be pleased some of their handwork is still being used and loved.

What precious things do you have that have been handed down? What do you want to hand down for future generations? What do you think are essentials for “Hope Chests” these days?

43 thoughts on “Remnants”

  1. That quilt block is, I think, a simplified Churn Dash pattern. There was a time when Robin and I were more avid about traditional quilts and we could have identified many traditional blocks on sight. Robin has a crazy quilt that was made by her grandmother’s aunt. It has areas where the fabric has started to separate and Robin has mended it. Robin also has a dress that belonged to her great grandmother and I have a swatch of my great grandmother’s wedding dress (it was brown). Other than photos, we have few family heirlooms. I have a copper hearth kettle my grandfather brought with him from Sweden. I have always thought it a rather odd thing for a 20-year-old to choose to bring with him.

    We still have traditional quilts we collected back in the early years of our marriage and several Robin has made over the years. We travel to view quilts when we can, especially those at the quilt museum in Cedarburg, Wisconsin.
    We have a stack of Kantha quilts, pieced from sari fabric in no particular named pattern, kind of like the quilts from Gee’s bend.

    Robin has continued to put together quilts, now using vintage Japanese fabric she has collected.

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    1. I was going to add, one of the interesting things about old quilts like the one pictured is the opportunity to view the fabrics that our predecessors used for their clothing.

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      1. My grandmother told me when looking at the quilt many years ago “oh, those pieces came from dresses that Leona had, and Emmy had a dress in that fabric”.

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  2. I love quilts. I have a substandard one on my bed right now that I got from Zulily a few years back but money was an issue then. Every year when I go to the state fair, I wander through the education building and I see all of the quilts and I take pictures. A lot of them. I particularly love the quilts on sticks, which I think are hilarious. I always leave the building thinking “I should quilt, I would love to quilt”. Then I spend the next week beating myself up because can I afford a new hobby? Where would I put said hobby? When would I find the time for this hobby? And then I abandon the idea until the next state fair.

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  3. The whole topic of heirlooms and legacies is on my mind a lot these days. I’ve been working really hard the last couple of months on my decluttering project. The mindset that I’ve taken is, if and when I downsize, will I want this in my smaller space with me.? Enough to pack it up and take it there? With this mindset, my eyes have fallen upon a few things that came from my grandmothers. I have an little music box that was probably supposed to be a powder compact, but has never had powder in it, as well as a table lamp and a hamburger press, with the pictures of a rooster on it. I’ve never actually used any of these items although the hamburger press is in the kitchen on the shelf. YA didn’t know either of my grandmothers and I would be bet money that when I ask her later today if she’s even remotely interested in these items, she will look at me like I have frogs jumping out of my ears when she says no. So here’s the question. Do I want those enough to pack them up and take them into a smaller space? I’m not sure. As for legacies from me, YA is on her own.

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  5. Through how many generations does an object have to pass before you can call it an heirloom? I’m not sure if stuff our parents bought or collected would qualify.

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    1. I disagree. Heirlooms have to start somewhere. If your father collects something and passes it down to you, I think it qualifies as an heirloom. Even more if you pass it down to your children.

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  6. I have a small china cup that my grandmother received at her baptism in 1900. It has gold decorations and German inscriptions on it, and it appears to have been used as a drinking cup. I consider that, if not an heirloom, at least very special and historical.

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  7. I had a quilt made for me by my mom’s mom that I left with her to mend, and she misunderstood (or forgot) and gave it away. Having survived that (I had a photo and my memories), I realize that what I have from her is a journal she kept when I stayed with her several days when my sister was born. And I have a letter from my grandpa to me, before he died. THESE are priceless.

    I’ve let go of all but a couple of kitchen pieces from dad’s mom. We had to really downsize for the move here, going on 9 years ago. (!)

    I think the only thing to pass on to future generations is whatever they’re interested in. So much is available for them online (music, books & writings). Art certainly, but tastes differ – you can’t predict or dictate what someone will want.

    The only kind of hope chest needed at this point is what it will take to survive WW III. (Sorry, I’m in kind of a gloomy mood…)

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  10. I have one or two quilts made by my maternal great grandmother. I never knew her. I sold many of the quilts that I received, most of which were pretty well worn and falling apart. I also sold a Lane cedar chest that belonged to my paternal grandmother. I did know her. She was where our family dysfunction started. I guess you really can’t blame her for her controlling behavior. She had been orphaned and I don’t know her whole story. She liked being wealthy, and wanted everyone to know that she was rich. Her husband and sons were unhappy people due to her controlling behavior. It didn’t bother me to sell her cedar chest. I felt more strongly about the quilts, even though I didn’t know my great grandmother who made them. I kept the two best ones. The sunbonnet baby quilt was on my bed when I was young. My mom adored it and took good care of it. She always told me it would be mine one day. It means something to me, so I kept it.

    I have a carved wooden Buddha from my dad’s time in the Korean War. My mom used to make me clean on Saturdays. Part of the cleaning routine was dusting and oiling all the wooden furniture and cabinets. I polished the Buddha until he became a very dark brown. He used to be a lighter color of wood, but these days he’s very dark. His belly shines from being rubbed.

    I also have a small, dented tin cup, engraved with “Helen,” which was my maternal grandmother’s name.

    I have no heirs, nor do I have a hope chest. I understand and respect those traditions but I don’t value them for myself. I’m also downsizing. My brothers don’t want my stuff and I don’t have children. I don’t want to leave my stuff for my brother to deal with, so I try to downsize every chance I get.

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    1. The Lane Company had an interesting marketing promotion. They made miniature Lane cedar chests that furniture stores could purchase and offer to high school girls if they brought their parents in to the store to see the hope chests. The furniture store’s identity is usually printed inside the cover. This was still going on in the ‘60s, I think. One often sees those miniature hope chests in antique malls. Often the antique vendors don’t know exactly what they were meant to be. Over the course of the promotion the styles of the miniature chests varied, making them appealing to collectors. Robin has at least a dozen she has acquired.

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      2. When I was in high school, hope chests were NOT a thing. But for some reason I thought it would be a great idea for me to start putting together stuff for my eventual life on my own. My grandmother actually gave me an old chest of drawers that I used for this. No quilts but I did collect dishes from the grocery store – one of those “free plate every week” deals. I had a pretty complete set by the time I graduated. Also had a fair amount of other kitchen stuff. I still have this chest of drawers – lives in my bedroom.

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        1. I always found it hard to take that the “hope” for my life was to get married. So many marriages were not working out all that well. I caved to the pressure to marry young and regretted it over and over.

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      3. Mine was full-sized, with the Lane stamp on the inside cover. It also had a piece of cardboard stapled inside with information about where it was made, serial number, etc. It was very ornate, with decorative wood in the front, spirals and ornate feet and edge trim. I thought it was ugly due to all the unnecessary decor.

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  12. Better Late Than Never,Baboons,

    I have bunches of stuff that my mother kept as “heirlooms” and that I need to part with. The younger generation does not want it, and I really don’t want most of it. I have quite a collection of postcards that I need to sell to someone, but I hate the piddly nature of selling the stuff in a way that gets maximum value. I will give my covered wagon box to a niece. I also need to dispose of many pictures of mine. I already made a project of doing this with my grandparents and parents pictures. They kept everything! The hundreds of pictures of hogs all went into the garbage. All those pigs looked alike.

    I have found that county historical societies, often which have local museums, are great places for much of this. We have donated china, farm equipment, Depression-era farm loan papers, hand-carded wool, and high school annuals to various county institutions. I also donated my grandmother’s wedding dress to one of these museums where I think it has been displayed. My other grandmother’s china was used in a dining room display.

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    1. My dad donated a lot of his momentos from the Second World War and my grandpa’s stuff from the First World War to the Herreid Military Museum in Luverne.

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  13. I have a quilt made by my grandmother, one made by my aunt Verona, one by my friend Diane, and several my mother made. This post reminds me that I need to do some repairs on one of my mother’s quilts. She made quilts for my sister and me when we were kids. appliquing fish onto some of the squares. One of the fabrics that was in the blocks adjacent to the fish blocks was an orange fabric that, for some reason, did not hold up through the years. Numerous blocks have a small orange rectangle that is fraying. I’ve always intended to stitch something over those, but I haven’t done it yet.

    The quilt I have from my friend has a small rectangle with her signature. It would be a nice thing to stitch a little attribution patch onto each of my quilts, to give credit to the maker. Have to figure out how to do that.

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  14. What a beautiful piece of work. We are so used to throw away bedding these days, flimsy duvet and covers. And it’s not often – unless you’re interested in crafts – that you make pieces like this.

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  15. When my mom got married in the mid 1950s, three aunts (including her godmother) made her a quilt out of fabric remnants from clothing. It was on my bed when I was little (about 4 years old) and I loved examining the fabric patterns when I couldn’t get to sleep for my nap. The quilt was packed away when my mom bought new bedding for the bunk bed I shared with my sister and stayed packed away for decades. She recently brought it out and has in in her living room. It’s 70 years old, but in pretty good condition.

    I’m a sentimental packrat, and have collected a number of “heirlooms” over the years. My paternal grandmother collected porcelain teacups and saucers. When she died, I inherited several of them. My paternal grandfather was a professional chef and used to give me cookbooks from his collection as gifts. When he passed away, I inherited his handwritten cooking notebooks, filled with “recipes” he’d written down (usually a list of ingredients with no amounts and minimal instructions), plus menus and recipes he cut from newspapers. They’re like a time capsule of how people cooked and ate in the mid 20th century.

    I have a Lane cedar chest. My mom bought one for both me and my sister. Mine still holds linens and table linens, plus some baby clothing and mementos. I also have one of those mini chests that holds old letters.

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  16. My grandmother was a dressmaker in Puglia- I have some garments that include fabric she wove, embroidery and lace she made. She was proud that she and her mother or sisters were good enough seamstresses that they made priest’s vestments. I will give them to a two nieces and they can pass them on if they wish. They were enthusiastic when I told them I would bring them or mail to them in upstate NY (where they have LOTS of snow right now-100-200″!

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