“The woman they chose instead—what is her field of study?”
“Media and the political process, mostly. How campaigns have changed over time, the role of debates in elections.” She forced herself to add, “I have to admit it’s interesting work.”
“I’m sure it is, but that doesn’t make your work dull or irrelevant.” Sylvia drummed her fingers on the tabletop. “I wish I could think of a quilt that figured heavily in politics, but I’m afraid nothing comes to mind. The closest I can come is the time Mrs. Roosevelt was presented with the prizewinning quilt from a contest held at the 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago.”
Gwen set down her teacup. “Eleanor Roosevelt?”
“That’s right. This was the biggest quilt competition ever held, before or since. Nearly twenty-five thousand quilters submitted quilts, and my sister and I were two of them.” Sylvia chuckled. “We bent the rules a little by making our quilt together. When we signed the form saying that the quilt was entirely of our own making, Claudia wrote, ‘Claudia Sylvia Bergstrom.’ That was her idea. I thought no one would believe a mother would name her child Claudia Sylvia, but they must not have noticed, because we made it to the semifinals.”
Gwen laughed. “Sylvia, I’m shocked. You cheated in a quilt competition?”
“Only in a sense,” she protested. “Keep in mind, I was only thirteen and my sister fifteen. If we combined our ages we were still younger than most of the other participants, so we decided we weren’t really cheating.”
Sylvia explained that they weren’t the only participants to interpret the rules liberally. The woman who claimed the grand prize had not put a single stitch into the quilt submitted in her name. Instead she sent the fabric and pattern to one woman who pieced the top, while another added beautiful stuffed work, and still others contributed the exquisite, sixteen-stitches-to-the-inch quilting. The winner paid her team of helpers a modest fee for their labor, but refused to share any of the prize money with them after she won. “They were poor women, too, and it was the Depression,” said Sylvia disapprovingly. “The grand prize of one thousand dollars was an enormous sum in those days, more than a year’s salary for most people. I never understood why she wasn’t more generous.”
“How does Eleanor Roosevelt figure in this story?”
“After the World’s Fair, the grand prize quilt was presented to her and kept at the White House. It has since disappeared. Now, that would be a project worth researching. I’d give a lot to know what happened to that quilt.” Sylvia sipped her tea, thoughtful. “But whatever happened to it, and however one regards the woman who won, that’s not what I think of when I recall that quilt show. The theme of the fair was ‘A Century of Progress,’ and the interpretations those quilters produced were simply remarkable. There were quilts that celebrated advances in technology, transportation, industry, women’s fight for equal rights—and remember, this was at a time when the nation was truly struggling. To see all those expressions of optimism and hope when we had so recently seen the worst of times in the Great War and were now mired in the Depression—well, it certainly impressed me, even at my age.”
“You saw the quilts? In person?”
“Yes, indeed. My father took my sister, my brother, and me to the World’s Fair that year. It was a long journey to Chicago with three children in tow. I can’t imagine what he was thinking, but I’m glad he did it.” Sylvia rose and inclined her head to the doorway. “I saved a box full of souvenirs, if you would like to see them.”
Gwen wouldn’t have dreamed of doing otherwise, so she followed Sylvia up the oak staircase to the third floor, where Sylvia gestured to the narrow set of stairs leading to the attic. She declined to accompany Gwen farther, but she described the old walnut bureau so well that Gwen found it easily, halfway down the west wing. Gwen retrieved an engraved tin box from the bottom drawer and dusted it with her sleeve as she carried it down the creaking staircase.
They went to the library, where the embers of an earlier blaze still glowed in the fireplace. Sylvia seated herself nearby, but Gwen sat on the floor at her feet, the better to spread out the box’s treasures. Inside she found brochures, ticket stubs, programs, photographs, and other items that must have been added later—newspaper articles from around the country featuring local quilt-makers whose entries had made it to the finals, advertisements from Sears Roebuck announcing their sponsorship of the contest, commercial patterns taken from prizewinning quilts, a tattered ribbon with writing in faded ink naming Claudia Sylvia Bergstrom as the first-place winner from the Harrisburg Sears.
Before long Gwen became so engrossed in examining the artifacts that she hardly remembered to thank Sylvia when the older woman rose to go to bed, telling her to stay as long as she liked. Alone, Gwen lost track of the hours as she pored over the yellowed newspaper articles and studied the show catalogue. The picture that emerged from the fragile scraps of history was not the little-known anecdote from the life of Eleanor Roosevelt that Gwen had hoped to find, but something far more intriguing. The quilts entered in the 1933 World’s Fair contest had captured the national mood during a time of extreme trial. Granted, the theme “A Century of Progress” would have encouraged more optimistic interpretations in those days than in Gwen’s ironic era, but even if the quiltmakers had been steered toward a rosier perspective, their quilts still could be considered an accurate record of how those women defined progress.
This was it, Gwen realized. This was her new book.
She surveyed the orderly groupings of souvenirs on the floor all around her. Sylvia’s treasure trove of information was surely just the beginning. If nearly twenty-five thousand quilts had been submitted, surely there were more newspaper articles about the women who had made them, more scandals like the one surrounding the dubious honor of the grand prize winner, more mysteries such as the disappearance of the winning quilt—and, of course, the quilts themselves. A few hundred or even a few thousand of them might still exist, and if their makers were still around or had left diaries behind or had told their children stories—
“Sylvia’s quilt,” Gwen suddenly exclaimed. Sylvia had shown her the souvenirs, but not the quilt she and Claudia had made. She scrambled to her feet, left the library, and hurried down the hall to Sylvia’s room. She rapped softly at the door and drew back when Andrew opened it, squinting.
“What’s wrong?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.
“I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”
His brow furrowed. “Of course. It’s ten after one.”
“What?” She should have checked her watch. “Never mind. It can wait until tomorrow.”
“Is this a quilt thing?”
“What else would you expect at this hour? I’m sorry, Andrew. Go back to sleep.”
He shrugged as Gwen pulled the door shut softly. It was probably good she had woken him instead of Sylvia. Gwen doubted she herself could have managed so much tolerant humor in Andrew’s place. He was a rarity among his sex, the sort of man she could understand a woman wanting to marry.
She returned the souvenirs to the box and placed it carefully on a bookcase away from the fireplace and windows. As she drove home, her mind raced with possibilities. Tracking down her primary source materials would be a challenge, most likely involving travel—which meant finding grants to pay for it.
The next morning, she arrived at her office so jubilant that when Jules came to see her—once more either the bravest of her graduate students or the one who had drawn the short straw—he looked at her as if unsure whether she had indulged in some mind-altering substances more potent than caffeine. She immediately sent him off to the library to search the online newspaper archives for articles on the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. “What about my other assignments?” he asked, halfway out the door.
“Forget about those for now. This is our new project.”
He didn’t ask why. Gwen supposed the previous day’s announcement provided reason enough.
Jules must have spread the word t
o her two other graduate students that it was safe to approach, because they stopped by before noon for their new assignments. As for herself, she alternated between searching the internet for leads on funding sources and scanning her reference books of Depression-era quilts for possible Sears National Quilt Contest entries, even if they were not expressly identified as such. In a ten-year-old auction catalogue she found a floral appliquéd medallion quilt with “A Century of Progress” embroidered in a scroll across the top, but nothing in the item’s description alluded to the World’s Fair contest. It had to be connected, and a bit of research would uncover the particulars. Exultant, she concluded that this lucky find was a positive omen and thanked whatever divine spirit had inspired Sylvia to tell her about the contest.
The rapidly approaching camp season, the deadline for Sylvia’s bridal quilt, and even the committee’s misguided decision slipped to the back of her thoughts as her new research consumed her time and her imagination. Even her graduate students caught her enthusiasm after she explained the scope of the project and made them swear on the fate of their doctoral dissertations that they would discuss it with no one. Before their weekly business meeting on the last day of January, she and Sylvia arranged to meet at the manor in the afternoon to search for the Bergstrom sisters’ entry.
“I know where it ought to be,” said Sylvia, huffing slightly as she led Gwen up the narrow staircase to the attic. “My concern is that it was moved during a search for something else.”
Gwen switched on the light and sneezed, waving away dust motes. “Is it possible Claudia sold it?” She had sold many other family heirlooms during Sylvia’s fifty-year absence from Elm Creek Manor, including their mother’s own bridal quilt.
“It’s possible, but I doubt it. Claudia rarely won ribbons for her handiwork. I doubt she would have parted with any quilt of hers that earned such recognition. Of course, she never would have made it to the semifinals working on her own.”
“Of course not,” said Gwen, hiding a smile.
Sylvia directed Gwen to a section of the attic not far from the walnut bureau and gestured to a collection of trunks and boxes. “If it’s here, this is where we’ll find it.”
There they found papers, books, china, clothing, and assorted items Gwen would have tossed out with the trash if they were in her house, but no quilts. When Gwen decided to broaden their search area, she discovered a bundle of Storm at Sea blocks pieced from the pastel cottons common to the late 1920s and early 1930s. Sylvia examined them and announced that Claudia had made them, judging from the poorly matched seams that she never would have permitted in her own work. “You’re on the right track, dear,” said Sylvia approvingly, and took up the search nearby.
Before long they found the quilt, nestled into a paper box all its own. Gwen held it up so Sylvia could examine it. The quilt was in fine condition for its age, a testament, Sylvia noted, to the excellent care it had received, except during shipping and at the judging venues. Even so, few stains marred the green, lavender, rose, and ivory quilt, which was accented with appliquéd features in bold red, blue, and black.
The design itself was a compromise, Sylvia explained. Sylvia had wanted to create an original pictorial quilt inspired by the “Century of Progress” theme, but Claudia thought they would stand a better chance of pleasing the judges if they used a traditional pattern and devoted their time to flawless, intricate needlework rather than novelty. After an argument spanning several weeks—which would have been better spent sewing—they agreed that Sylvia could design a central appliqué medallion depicting various scenes from colonial times until the present day, to which Claudia would add a border of pieced blocks. “Odd Fellow’s Chain,” said Sylvia, fingering the border. “Obviously, she chose it for its appearance, not its name.”
“Unless she meant to make a statement about contemporary notions of progress.”
“Hmph.” Sylvia showed a hint of a smile. “Claudia was not that clever. The block did give us the quilt’s title, however. We called it Chain of Progress.”
Gwen draped the quilt over an upholstered armchair to better examine it. She could see in this early example of Sylvia’s work how her tastes and skills had developed through the decades. The uneven quality of the needlework she attributed to the widely differing abilities of the two sisters, but even the worst pieced Odd Fellow’s Chain block proved that Claudia could not have been as poor a quilter as Sylvia suggested. The green Ribbon of Merit still attached to the quilt attested to that.
Gwen was imagining how Chain of Progress would look on the cover of her book when Sylvia began folding it. “It’s almost time for the meeting. Shall we take this downstairs and surprise our friends?”
“No,” Gwen exclaimed. “I don’t want anyone to know.”
“Why on earth not? If you want to track down other contest entries, the more people who know about your project, the better. You never know who might provide a useful lead.”
“I will tell them eventually. Soon,” she amended, when Sylvia raised her eyebrows. “First I want to be sure there is a book in this. Then I’ll be grateful for help.”
“You’ll be lucky if you get any, keeping secrets from your friends as if you’re afraid they’ll steal your ideas,” admonished Sylvia. “Whenever the Elm Creek Quilters keep secrets from one another, it always means trouble.”
“Not always,” said Gwen, remembering Sylvia’s bridal quilt and the block she had yet to begin.
The next day, Gwen received a response to an email she had sent to the Chicago Historical Society. They agreed her idea was worth pursuing and would consider funding a portion of her research if she submitted a full proposal by their annual deadline, February 5.
That left Gwen with only a few days to pull together all the information they needed, but fortunately, she had no plans for the weekend. On Friday afternoon after her last class, she hurried home, turned off the ringer on the phone, and hid her cell phone in a kitchen drawer. She resolved not only to complete her proposal in time, but to write the best, most persuasive proposal the Chicago Historical Society had ever seen. One late night blurred into an early morning, and another, as she feverishly raced to meet her deadline. If she succeeded, it wouldn’t be one of Annette’s six-figure triumphs, but it would be a start.
“Mom?”
Gwen jumped at the sound of Summer’s voice from elsewhere in the house. “In here,” she called, typing frantically even when she heard her daughter enter the room. “Hi, kiddo. What’s up?” Then she remembered, and she spun her chair around, dismayed. “Oh, no. Supper.”
“Sunday at five o’clock,” Summer said, grinning and tapping her watch.
“I completely forgot.” How could she forget inviting her only child for a meal? “We could send out for pizza.”
Summer assured her she would be satisfied with a sandwich to accompany the salad she had brought, and Gwen suddenly realized she had taken nothing but coffee since breakfast. Her refrigerator was shamefully empty, as she had skipped her customary Saturday morning trip to the grocery store, but Summer, as always, was a good sport. She was also always very curious, and she soon asked her mother what she was working on.
Gwen couldn’t tell her. She knew her idea would make a fascinating, informative book—but maybe she was not the person to write it. She could not bear to tell Summer later that she had abandoned a brilliant research project because, ultimately, Bill and his committee were correct: She was good enough for what she did, but she need not aspire to anything greater.
Gwen tried to put Summer off, but Summer persisted, so Gwen told her about the committee’s decision not to appoint her department chair. Summer’s indignation warmed her and reminded her that she had made some important discoveries in her tenure at Waterford College. Too bad Bill lacked Summer’s insight—or bias.
Then Summer asked, “So what were you working on? A new paper on a new topic?”
“I’ll let you read it when it’s done.”
Summer no
dded, but Gwen knew she was disappointed, despite her lighthearted reassurances about Gwen’s forthcoming book. She thought her mother was giving up the study of quilt history to appease the committee.
Gwen wanted to assure her she wasn’t, she wouldn’t. She wanted to see pride shining in her daughter’s eyes again. But she could not commit that hope to words until she knew she would not have to relinquish her new project to a more able scholar.
She tried to change the subject by asking how Jeremy was doing. Summer said he was fine and she saw him often, but offered no more than that. They talked about the upcoming camp season and Sylvia’s bridal quilt, but Gwen was too conscious of disappointing Summer to enjoy the rest of the meal.
The next morning, she decided to stop by Summer’s place on her way to work. It wasn’t really on the way, but Gwen was eager to apologize for her forgetfulness and her evasive behavior the previous night. Karen opened to her knock and told her Summer had left not long before, but Aaron hovered in the background, his expression so alarmed and wary that Gwen knew at once Summer had not spent the night there.
So. Summer must have slept at Jeremy’s. Gwen thanked the roommates, who were visibly relieved not to be interrogated further, and departed without leaving a message. She could hardly criticize Summer for doing something many other young women her age did, something she herself had done. She just hoped Summer wouldn’t make a habit of it, and build up Jeremy’s expectations when she surely had no intentions of leaving with him upon his graduation.
Surely Summer had no such intentions?
With a knot in the pit of her stomach, Gwen continued on to campus, pausing only to drop her grant proposal in the overnight express pickup box.
February passed in a frenzy of classes, research, writing, and the submission of grant proposals, with worries about Summer and Jeremy lingering in the back of Gwen’s mind. She would have forgotten Sylvia’s bridal quilt entirely if not for the invitation letter pinned to the bulletin board behind her computer, and she had so neglected her preparations for the upcoming quilt camp season that at the first business meeting of March, when Sarah told her they needed to cancel some of her classes, Gwen felt too guilty to argue. That feeling was compounded when Summer, who had asked to speak to her afterward, changed her mind, obviously sensing Gwen’s eagerness to get back to work. They made plans to have supper the following Sunday, and this time, Gwen vowed not to forget.
Elm Creek Quilts [06] The Master Quilter Page 9
