Airing The Quilts: Greensboro history stitched into the tapestry of quilts

Colorful quilts surrounding the Dezell House in Greensboro attracted visitors from near and far this past weekend.

With clear, blue skies, warm temperatures and a steady cool breeze, the weather proved perfect for the West Gadsden Historical Society’s annual Airing of the Quilts and Spring Bazaar held on Saturday, March 26.

“Springtime airing of the quilts is historic of this type of textile,” Jane Clark, with the West Gadsden Historical Society, said.

The event is held once a year in March.

“Years ago, when they didn’t have store bought blankets, everybody used them in the winter and aired them out in March and packed them for the summer; you couldn’t easily wash them,” Clark said. “There were no washing machines.”

Clark said another reason the quilts weren’t washed is because in the late 19th and early 20th centuries - when many of the quilts on display that day were made - the batting inside was loose, natural cotton straight from the field.

Sometimes they would comb the cotton to get the burs out, Clark noted.

“You didn’t wash it because it would bunch up,” Clark added.

The oldest quilt displayed this year is about 150 years old and was made by Jackie Sharpton, who hand-stitched the quilt’s Irish chain pattern.

The very early ones were not machine made, Clark pointed out; sometimes the quilts were sewn. Sometimes they were hand-tied.

Many of the antique quilts were pieced from old flour sacks, sugar sacks and even feed sacks.

“Back in the day - the early 1900s - you didn’t buy sugar, flour or even chicken feed in paper bag; you bought it in cloth sacks,” Clark said. “Manufacturers realized if they printed their flour sacks and feed sacks, the ladies would pick their brands.

Clarks said back then women would get together to make quilts, especially when someone was getting married or having a baby.

One quilt hanging in a corner of the museum’s sunroom stood out.

Clark said it’s a friendship quilt made in 1931. Friendship quilts were very popular during that time.

She said she didn’t know the name of the pattern, used in the “Butler” Friendship Quilt, but each block depicts a diamond inside a square.

Embroidered inside the blocks are the names of women. Cities or towns accompanied some of the names.

Stitched into the threads of the quilt are the names of Mrs. B.A. Tolar, Greensboro; Thelma Graves, Scottsboro, Ala.; Mrs. D.H. Clark, Tallahassee; Mattie Lovelady, Quincy, Fla., just to name a few.

“Who knows what this was for,” Clarks said as she gently touched the old quilt. “We have no clue.”

The quilt was found by a local Greensboro lady at an estate sale in the 1980s.

Recognizing so many names on the friendship quilt, she purchased it, paying only $3 for it.

Around 2008, she loaned the quilt to the historical society for the quilt show.

It has been in several homes during the past 30-40 years. Recently it was given to the society for the event last Saturday.

Two members of the historical society compiled a list of the ladies’ names back in the early 2000s. Since then, they have been researching and collecting information about the ladies for historical record.

20 years later, the project is still on-going.

Quilts weren’t just used as covers; they were sometimes used as tablecloths.

A yo-yo pattern quilt was draped over a circle-wooden table inside one of the rooms in the Dezell house.

It was created by Genera Shepard, who learned how to sew about 45 years ago.

Shepard, who is also a member of Greensboro Baptist Church’s Peacemakers Quilting Group, sat under a tent sewing quilt pieces during the festival.

She and other members of the group were selling handmade quilted and crocheted items.

“My grandmother started out cutting old newspapers in shapes and she showed me how,” Shepard said.

The yo-yo is her favorite pattern.

“It’s easy,” she said as she demonstrated how to make it, sewing a piece of fabric with needle and thread.

Not all of the quilts displayed during the event belong to the historical society.

“We just ask the community if they have a quilt they want to display and give them back at the end of the show,” Clark said.

The museum was also open for visitors to explore.

Chelsea White and Christina White, both from Greensboro, admired quilts hanging from the roof and on a guard rail as they exited the back door of the Dezell House.

“I didn’t know there was this much history in Gadsden County until I walked in and saw it,” Chelsea White said of the Dezell House.

While others knew about the event in advance, others happened to see it while passing by.

“I was just driving through, and I saw the beautiful quilts and I just had to stop,” said Patti Dolan of Moultrie, Georgia.

Dolan traveled through Greensboro on her way

Erin Hill - erin@gadsdencountytimes.com

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Airing The Quilts: Greensboro history stitched into the tapestry of quilts

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