Kathryn Bly’s Quilt

The Daily Llama / Family HIstory / February 9, 2013 / 0 Comments

Kathryn Bly’s Quilt – 1906 – Unseen For Decades!

This is a quilt sewn by our maternal Grandmother Kathryn Bly [see photo] way back in 1906, more than a century ago. At the time of this writing it had not seen the light of day for at least 60 years – since the day that Kathryn died and the quilt was subsequently passed on to her daughter – our mother Elsie Joyce Blashill.

Ma kept the quilt, along with other precious heirlooms like her wedding dress, Dad’s Navy officer’s blouse, a 48 star American flag, along with a boxed set of silverware, in a classic chest made of mahogany lined with cedar that originally contained her dowry and once graced the living room of our house on Kinmore Court.

The “real” story is the tale of the journey Kathryn’s Quilt has taken since it left her hands.

Back in the Spring of 1988, as I was taking leave of Los Angeles – actually Venice (a community that author James Ellroy once characterized by the epithet “where the sewer meets the sea”) – when my ex, Deborah Johnson (she took most of the photos in the slideshow “Davidsons 1983”) ran up holding a cardboard box that was addressed to me in Ma’s flawless handwriting (a lost art) and said: “I think you’ll want to take this with you”.

“What is it?”

“I think it’s your Mom’s quilt”, she replied.

So we unsealed the box and spread the quilt out on the bed.

“No, this is my Grandmother’s quilt” I exclaimed. “From 1906”.

So here was this family heirloom – a fabulous comforter – hand made by our maternal Grandmother, which had been sent to me for some reason by Ma, and I had no recollection of ever receiving it. Talk about the early stages of dementia. And had it not been for Deborah’s thoughtfulness – my thoughtlessness might have resulted in the quilt possibly winding up in some second hand thrift shop in LaLa Land back then.

Sometime later, after moving to San Francisco, I called sister Anita. She had sent me a trove of documents and photos from the archives of Ma’s sister Mary Blashill Rogers and we were talking about what to do with them. “I have something Ma gave me that I think you should have”, I said. “It’s Kathryn Bly’s quilt.”

To this day I don’t know why Ma sent it to me. Traditionally, heirlooms of this sort are passed on mother to daughter as Kathryn had done. Maybe Ma thought I would be the only sibling who’d even remember her mother, she having died in 1952. I do recall Ma ushering me into a hospital room at the time to witness Kathryn’s body contorting as she desperately gasped for breath on what was to be her deathbed. Giving up one’s life is not a tranquil, discarnate act. It is a fight to the finish – a battle until one’s final expiration.

In any event Kathryn Bly’s handiwork has lived for the past decades since – safely and lovingly in the possession of one of her Grand Daughters – Anita Cabadas. And now I’m told it has been passed on from Anita to her daughter Carrie Caillouette – one of Kathryn’s Great Grand Daughters.

And so it goes…..

iPhoneography by Anita Cabadas.

Originally posted February 9, 2013.

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