LONGMONT — The cream-colored quilt covered in colorful lilies was so beloved that the family folded it into a wooden box and buried it in their backyard to spare it from falling into enemy hands.
On March 6, 1862, Union forces marched into Pea Ridge, Ark., beginning the Civil War battle that secured Missouri and northern Arkansas for the North. The Pope family, whose land turned into a battleground, buried their family quilt in the ground for safekeeping before they fled.
While it was buried — for how long, no one knows — rain seeped through the box and caused the colors to run. A rodent nibbled through the binding on one side. Occasionally, a small duck pinfeather wrestles free and pokes through the quilt top.
Despite its battle scars, it’s one of Jeananne Wright’s favorites among her collection of more than 600 quilts dating from 1811 through the present. And it’s the story behind the fabric that fuels her passions.
“When you put a face and a place with it, that quilt to me just comes alive and becomes one of my children. These quilts are like children to me, treasured children,” said Wright, 71, a retired fourth-grade teacher from the Jefferson County Public School District.
Wright began collecting quilts in 1968, mostly at garage sales and antiques stores, in an effort to preserve “material history.”
When she and her husband left Lakewood in December 1992 and moved to Longmont, Wright said, she had about 50 quilts. She carefully loaded the 18 best ones into a cardboard box and naively labeled it “Best quilts.”
That box never made it to Longmont.
Instead, Wright received a $6,800 insurance check for the stolen quilts. That gave her enough seed money to start collecting historic quilts.
“My mission is to save quilts, to treasure the stories and, in treasuring the stories, to see if I can find out who made them and then honor that person in my lectures,” said Wright, who lectures about the history of quilts and textiles.
She is also one of about 100 appraisers in Canada and the United States registered with the American Quilter’s Society.
Today, Wright’s collection includes the oldest documented quilt in Colorado, titled “Cockscomb and Prince’s Feather.” The quilt’s creator, Susan Adair of Blackhawk, started working on it in 1859 and finished it in 1917.
Aside from collecting, Wright also rescues quilt tops — just the pretty top layer of a quilt — and adds batting and backing to complete the piece. She has completed about 50 so far, though her arthritis slows the process to a point where Wright uses pliers to pull her needle through the thick backing.
Though Wright daydreams about the original creator — why was the quilt never finished? Maybe the woman fell ill? Was she too busy taking care of her children to quilt? Did she die? — the responsibility of finishing another person’s quilt weighs on her mind.
“I take it very seriously,” she said. “In other words, I hadn’t thought of myself as being very patient, but with the first one I did, I decided you have to do it slowly and carefully or don’t do it at all.”
Annual quilt sale and show saturday The Interfaith Quilters of Longmont will hold their annual show and sale Friday and Saturday at First Evangelical Lutheran Church, 803 Third Ave., Longmont.
About 700 pieces, including baby quilts, pillowcases, lap quilts, wall hangings and table runners, will be available for sale at the show, now in its 26th year.
Proceeds will be divided between the Safe Shelter of St. Vrain Valley and the OUR Center.
The quilt preview will be from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday. Admission to the preview is $5, and that also covers admission to the show and sale from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. Admission to the sale only is $1.
Longmont resident Jeananne Wright’s quilt collection will be on display both days.
Information: 303-772-8828 or
