LOVELAND, Colo.—About 30 years ago, Loveland’s Mary Small spotted a colorful quilt in a Michigan antique store she knew she had to have.
Made in 1886, the Civil War-era “crazy” quilt sewed together a mismatch of patches, pieces of clothing, embroidered designs and cloth paintings into one large blanket.
Small bought the fragile fabric because of its beauty, she said.
But it wasn’t until years later that she realized her piece of art was also a piece of history.
Now, thanks to a small list of names printed onto one patch, Small is using the quilt to sew together the story of some young soldiers lost long ago.
“I opened it and thought there’s all this history right here,” she said.
After purchasing the antique, Small didn’t handle the quilt very often. The silk was getting so fine and delicate that pieces began to wear away.
Yet when her daughter started studying the American pioneers in school, Small decided to unfold the antique cloth and share it with the class.
That’s when she spotted a small white patch in the upper corner of the design.
“In Memoriam,” it read, followed by a list of 52 names—soldiers from Niagara County, N.Y., who were killed in the Civil War.
“I said ‘Oh my gosh, this is a piece of history,'” Small said.
“I’ve been researching it ever since.”
Hoping to uncover more information about the men, as well as the person who made the quilt, Small—who had never taken on a historical project—began searching the Internet for their stories.
Through a Civil War database, she managed to find basic information about some of the soldiers, including where they enlisted and served.
Later, Small visited the National Archives in Denver to search census records and find “anything I could uncover” about them.
“It was just fascinating,” said Small, who can now recount battles and historical facts about the war like a seasoned historian.
And besides gaining knowledge of the war and the soldiers, Small’s research sparked an attachment to the men who lived and died more than a century before her.
“I call them my boys,” she said with a smile.
So when the Lovelander was back East on vacation, she made sure to visit Sanborn, the tiny New York town where the quilt was made.
There, Small met with the town’s historical society director, who gave her more clues about the soldiers’ past.
They visited a few of the homes where the soldiers once lived. Small held the jacket one of them had worn and visited a few of their graves. She even met some of the Civil War soldiers’ descendants.
“It was just a thrill to go to these places and meet these people,” Small said, noting she could close her eyes and imagine the young men going about their day in the town.
Since beginning her research, Small has acquired copies of letters, diaries and photographs of her boys to learn more about who they were.
She recites each one’s story as if she were talking about a lost friend.
“Two of my soldiers were in a prisoner of war camp,” she said solemnly, explaining they had to eat acorns to stay alive.
Another story cited a young woman who was a bride and sister to two of the soldiers killed. After her husband died, she never remarried.
One soldier, Alexander Mabon, has become Small’s favorite. She got to know him through letters he wrote to his sister.
“He was so funny,” she said. “He had such a wonderful sense of humor.”
Despite her years of research, Small still has only a little information about a few of the soldiers.
Only one soldier’s past remains a complete mystery, she said.
As for the woman who made the quilt, the embroidered “L.R.” initials have lent few clues. However, Small’s research found the maker may have been the cousin of one of the fallen men.
The Lovelander doesn’t know how long she’ll continue her research, but hopes to write a book about her findings.
And in the end, she plans to donate the quilt to a museum in its town of origin.
But until then, Small will “just keep piecing it together.”
After getting to know the men through their letters, she knows they wanted others to understand their efforts were not made in vain.
“They believed in what they were doing,” she said. “They wanted to be remembered.”
