Ridgway – Harold and Lois Geer’s son, Army Pfc. George Geer, had been buried more than a year when Roslyn Atwood knocked at the door of their Cortez trailer and handed them a quilt she had made.
“We were kind of overwhelmed,” Harold Geer said as he recalled the delivery of that gift last winter. “People cared enough to remember.”
The Geers keep the quilt in a glass cabinet in their front room, except when Lois, who is suffering from early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, wraps herself in it for comfort.
Atwood, who lives near Ridgway and had never met the Geers, was carrying on a Civil War tradition when she stitched together the quilt of 15 calico squares and crosses. Each is centered by a white cotton square signed by Atwood and others who haven’t forgotten that George Geer died in the service of his country in Iraq.
Atwood has finished five of these quilts and hopes, with help, to make 34 more for every Colorado soldier killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Her quilting is part of a national effort, the Home of the Brave Quilts Project, started by a California historian and quilter to honor America’s war dead by following the example of Civil War quilters.
Women working for the U.S. Sanitary Commission – a precursor of the American Red Cross – hand-stitched quilts during that war to aid and comfort the wounded.
Those first quilts were used as bedrolls and on cots in military hospitals. Many of them ended up as burial shrouds because of the shortage of wood for coffins.
Because they were heavily used, most of the hundreds of thousands of those Civil War quilts have disappeared. Only five are known to have survived, according to Don Beld, national coordinator for the Home of the Brave Quilts Project. One of the surviving quilts is on display at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.
Today’s war quilts go to the families of dead soldiers and often end up framed on walls or hanging on quilt display racks.
“I plan to frame it and hang it up,” said Cindy Smith, mother of Marine Lance Cpl. Chad Maynard, who was killed in an explosion in Iraq a year ago.
Her quilt, which she received in March, was signed by her son’s ROTC chief and some of his fellow high school ROTC participants.
She said she appreciates the message in the quilt even more than its calico beauty.
“It means a lot for the families to know we are not the only ones who remember and who care,” Smith said.
Atwood, a native of Australia who became a citizen in January, said her involvement in the quilt project began when she found herself “with a really heavy heart for the soldiers and their families.”
Atwood’s husband was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, and her son was a former combat medic and is now a recruiter with the Army National Guard. They supported her effort.
Atwood spends about a week and about $100 making each quilt with the help of Gale Smith, a Montrose quilter. She said tracking down family members has taken much more time than stitching the quilts.
The two are trying to recruit more quilters so they can finish quilts for every Colorado family who has lost a soldier.
Atwood can be contacted at co.hob@cox.net.
Staff writer Nancy Lofholm can be reached at 970-256-1957 or nlofholm@denverpost.com.
