By Barbara Miller Beem CATONSVILLE, Md. – From Catonsville, Md., to Statesboro, Ga., and then back home again, with unknown stops in between: To paraphrase the famous folk hymn, the old quilt was lost, but now is found. And although there remain unanswered questions, its story has a happy ending, thanks to amazing grace. Back in March of this year, Debbie Emley and her husband, Bill, were doing what they do most Thursday evenings, attending the weekly sale conducted by Liberty Auctions in Pembroke, Ga. Collectors and not dealers, the couple live in nearby Statesboro and are frequently on the hunt for baskets, crocks, old pottery – “primitive country” is how Debbie describes the look that attracts her. She especially loves quilts. On this particular Thursday night, her eye was drawn to a quilt sitting at the end of the row the auctioneer was working. And as sometimes happens at sales such as this one, something came over Debbie. There she was, in the thick of the bidding. “Why my hand went up, I can’t tell you,” she recounted. To make matters worse, she was vying for something that was pretty much an unknown to her; the way the hand-stitched bed covering was folded, she couldn’t determine much about it, other than it appeared (from what she could see) to be in good condition and that it was purple. “That was very different for me,” she said, noting that she usually favors browns, reds and blues. Before she knew it, though, she was the quilt’s proud owner. Forty-five dollars seemed reasonable enough, and she told herself that it might fit in nicely with the shabby-chic décor of their spare bedroom. Arriving home late and feeling tired, Debbie waited until the next morning to examine her purchase. Spreading it out on her living room floor, she was shocked by what she saw. There was a quilt made up of 20 blocks; four purple flowers decorated each block, and along each stem were 20 hand-embroidered names. In all, there were some 400 names on the quilt. All Debbie could think was, “Who are these people?” She continued to examine her “find,” and then she spied the words “Catonsville Methodist Church, April Circle” embroidered in script. A recently retired library assistant, Debbie’s natural inclination to research kicked in. Thanks to the internet, she quickly learned that the church in question is located in Catonsville, Md., a suburb of Baltimore. She called the church office and spoke with the secretary, who took some notes and promised to be in touch. A few days later, Debbie heard from Nancy Hobbs, chair of the congregation’s records and history committee. Nancy was on the case. She spoke with the church’s pastor, Mark Waddell, himself an antique enthusiast, and they were thrilled to learn Debbie’s wish to return the quilt to its home. “Because there were family names on the quilt – and I had no emotional connection to it, I decided to give it back,” she explained. The church offered to pay shipping charges. But Debbie would have nothing of that. And so, on May 18, the Emleys arrived in Catonsville and met with several members of the congregation. That meeting, by all accounts, was an emotional one, as older church members recognized the names of their families, and, in one case, the name of a former geometry teacher. Both Debbie and Nancy say it was a moving experience. But Nancy’s work was just beginning. She photographed and coded every square of the quilt and saved the data to her computer. One by one, she documented the names in each square. Many of the family names were familiar, although the individual members were not. Thus began a months-long task of checking records and talking to friends and neighbors. One especially important breakthrough led to the determination of the quilt’s age: Nancy used 1940 census records to calculate the birth years of young boys, whose sister, married in 1937, was included on the quilt under her maiden name. Piecing this together, she was able to establish that the quilt was probably stitched in either 1936 or 1937. A remarkable achievement, she modestly concedes. The identity of the April Circle, however, remains murky, thanks to incomplete church records, although oral history suggests that a Mrs. Ricketts led the group. Why the quilt was made in the first place remains a mystery. It has been suggested that it was a subscription project and that the quilt was ultimately sold, an attempt to help the church with its mortgage in the years following the Great Depression. How it ended up in Georgia remains unanswered, although the auctioneer who sold it told Debbie he believed it was in a lot of items delivered to the auction house by a realtor who had cleaned out the South Carolina home of a deceased client. Suffice it to say, Nancy and Debbie, who have formed a close connection, will not rest easy until they have pursued every avenue of investigation. In addition to the new friendship that has been forged between the two women, one living in Maryland and the other in Georgia, Catonsvillians have been brought closer together. As for the long-lost quilt, a dedication service is being planned before it is hung in a hallway of the church that is protected from direct sunlight but in a place where all may see it. And Debbie and Nancy are convinced that this series of events is no accident. They talk about fate and why it was that Debbie, of all people, would come to purchase this quilt. And members of Catonsville United Methodist Church (as it is called today) are humbled by this stranger’s gracious gift. But as Debbie tells it, “It is amazing that this quilt has returned to its home.” |