The Salt Lake City 14th Ward Album Quilt, 1857: Stories of the Relief Society Women and Their Quilt

by Carol Holindrake Nielson

Overview

Quilts are a lot like people. They are not overnight undertakings. They seldom turn out the way they were intended. Colors change when you run short of fabric. Edges misalign where you least expect it.

When Carol Nielson and her husband inherited an album quilt—half a quilt, to be precise—she had no idea of the journey on which the fragile folds of appliqués and painstaking stitches would call her. Created in 1857 by the women of the Salt Lake City LDS 14th Ward, the quilt was raffled off to raise money for the poor, the Perpetual Immigrating Fund, and for various Mormon charitable enterprises. Each block was designed and signed by one of the women, many of whom were wives of leading church authorities.

Nielson’s desire to find the quilt’s other half, and to find out more about the women whose legacy she had—both literally and figuratively—inherited, led her back in time through countless lives of hardship, joy, and spiritual conviction in the face of adversity.

Filled with detailed photographs of the quilt and images of those who stitched the blocks, this book is a stirring read, a rich and beautiful testimony to women whose hands shaped not only thread and cloth, but also a state, forging a community with their pioneer spirit.

Winner of the Utah Book Award in Nonfiction. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780874807929
Publisher:	University of Utah Press
Publication date:	09/15/2004
Edition description:	1st Edition
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Carol Holindrake Nielson has a bachelor's degree in English education from Utah State University. She has been a teacher, tutor, and an historical interpreter at Mount Vernon, Virginia.

Table of Contents

	Preface	ix
	Introduction	1
1	The Quilt	7
	The Inheritance	7
	Only a Man Could Do That	8
	Where Is the Other Half?	10
	The Quilt's Provenance	13
2	The Fourteenth Ward	15
	This Is the Place	15
	The Fourteenth Ward Female Relief Society	17
	A Quilt Worthy of Celebration	24
3	The Quilt Blocks	31
	A Perspective	31
	The Women and Their Needlework
	Phebe W. Woodruff	39
	Phebe A. Woodruff and Susan C. Woodruff	43
	Bulah Woodruff	48
	Emma Woodruff	50
	Sarah Woodruff	53
	Sarah D. Woodruff	56
	Sarah B. Foss and Rhoda H. Richards	59
	Josephine Richards	64
	Ann C. Richards	68
	E. Johnson and Mary E. Bassett	70
	Elizabeth Johnson Blair and Martha A. Johnson Blair	75
	Mrs. T. Bullock	80
	Mrs. J. Cain	85
	Ann Carrigan	88
	Sarah Ann Church and Catherine G. Church	91
	A.A. Cummings	95
	W. East	98
	M. E. Hill, C. M. Hill, and M. G. Hill	101
	Mary Isabella Horne, Mary S. Horne, and Elizabeth Horne	107
	Elizabeth D. Ivins and Sarah T. Rose	116
	J. Jennings	122
	A. L. Morley and Hannah B. Morley	124
	H. C. Mumford	131
	Ellen Parker, Vilate E. Romney, E. Winder, and H. Winder	134
	Sarah Ann Ballo	146
	Angela L. Peart	149
	Elizabeth B. Pratt, Kezia D. Pratt, Phoebe Soper Pratt, and M. J. Darger	151
	Matilda Rhoads	161
	Jane C. Richardson and Grace R. Richardson	164
	Mary S. Snow	167
	Lucinda Southworth	170
	Emma Standish and Lizzie Standish	173
	Mary C. Taylor and Elizabeth C. Taylor	176
	Leonora Taylor and Jane B. Taylor	180
	Lovina Taylor	185
	A. Hoagland	187
	E. A. Hoagland and Caroline L. Snyder	190
	Deborah A. Turnbow and Maria L. Turnbow	194
	Eliza Woollacott	198
	Matilda Streeper Wordsworth	200
	Afterword: Forever Bound	203
	Notes	209
	Bibliography	221
	Acknowledgments	229
	Index	231
	About the Author	241

Editorial Reviews

"Carol Nielson has not only brought together two halves of a quilt, she has restored a forgotten community of women. Her patient research has transformed a family relic into a communal treasure."—Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, author of A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812

"A vital contribution to Utah’s rich history adding to an unfortunately under-appreciated and under-documented part of our history—frontier women."—William Slaughter, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Historical Department
 

"A compelling and thorough study of a quilt, the pioneer women who stitched it, and ultimately, the Mormon experience that defined them."—Kae Covington, author of Gathered in Time: Utah Quilts and Their Makers, Settlement to 1950

"A fine contribution to quild scholarship and a guide to using quilts to understand the history of women in Mormon culture and in American society."—Kathryn L. MacKay, Weber State University

From the Publisher

When Carol Nielson first handled the album quilt, she could not have anticipated how its carefully stitched blocks would influence her own life. She soon discovered that the album quilt she had inherited was a fragment of a large piece. Surprised by her own fervor, Nielson spent years searching for the quilt's other half. With a painstaking care that the 19th-century Mormon quilters would have admired, she researched the lives of the women whose designs she now so loved. Filled with detailed photographs of the quilt and its makers, The Salt Lake City 14th Ward Album Quilt is worthy of the brave women it honored.