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ELIZABETH BETTENDORFFriends and family received a quilt block, a fabric ink pen, and instructions to write from the heart for the quilt for Jim Koerper.
Most nights when the weather is hot and I can't stand anything in the way of covers, I sleep beneath a thin summer quilt so rich with story and emotion I fall asleep puzzling over its origins.
It's an autograph quilt, made of floral feed sack and scraps of cotton dresses from the Great Depression, the names of the women who stitched it embroidered into the design forever.
I bought it years ago at an antique sale on the lawn of the governor's mansion in Springfield, Ill., the central Illinois town where I once lived and worked. I paid too much for it, knew I paid too much for it, but fell in love with its pink Dresden plate pattern and the way the many dresses cut to make it seemed to float in the breeze on that fine fall day.
The dealer told me it was made by a women's quilting circle at a church outside Belleville, Ill., sometime in the 1930s. He didn't know much more about it, he said, just that it was old and probably made for someone's wedding trousseau.
The names, I think, reflect the time, culture and place from where the quilt came. When I look at each signature, embroidered in black thread - some names are printed, others sprawl in schoolhouse cursive - I feel like I know each one of these women, at least a little bit.
Sometimes in my dreams I talk to them, Edna, Daisy, Bertha, Ida, Edith, Winnie, Clara, Irene, Lula and Birdina, to name a few. One block is simply signed "Mother."
I've slept under my autograph quilt for years, washed it and abused it, not intentionally, but because I think we should use our things while we're alive. The old autograph quilt has nursed me through sickness and heartache, through cross-country moves, cold winter nights and graduate school.
So, the other day, as sheets of August rain etched patterns across my windows, I found myself reaching for it again. This time, curiosity got the best of me, prompting me to do some research. I called Marie Koerper, who works and teaches at Keep Me in Stitches, which has stores in South Tampa and Carrollwood.
It's probably worth noting, I have never met Koerper or even talked to her before. But as it turned out, like so many other things in life, the call was oddly prescient because Koerper not only loves autograph quilts, but also understands them.
She owns several, including an autograph quilt she made for her husband, Jim, four years ago when he was dying of lung cancer. He was a former president and chief executive officer of a hospital in Detroit, and when he got sick, friends, family and clients flocked to the suburban Michigan quilt shop where Koerper worked. She gave each person a quilt block and a special fabric ink pen that doesn't bleed, along with instructions to write from the heart.
They penned Bible verses and personal messages and drew whimsical pictures of the family's cats. Koerper, an accomplished quilter herself, then stitched the quilt together in what is known as a "signature block" pattern.
Few people know how to hand embroider anymore, she explains, much less have time for such handiwork. So the way we make autograph quilts has changed. The point of them, however, has remained the same: to bring comfort and good wishes into the heart and home of someone dear to us.
Koerper's husband slept beneath his autograph quilt every day during the last three months of his life. He loved it so much that when he died, she draped it over his casket instead of flowers.
The autograph quilt now hangs on the family room wall of Koerper's home in Westchase.
Last month she took it down and brought it in for a gathering at Keep Me in Stitches, where once a month about 60 women gather for Tea for Tuesdays and learn how to make a new quilt block.
The event isn't much different than the old quilting circles, Koerper says, those weekly or monthly get-togethers where women caught up on hometown news, exchanged stories, recipes and quilt designs. Those quilt patterns were so coveted, she says, that when the wagon trains rolled across the prairies, women sometimes swapped them for food.
Autograph quilts, she think, were largely reserved for special occasions: births, weddings, moves or deaths. In fact, Koerper also made one for her daughter's wedding, asking friends and family to sign pastel-colored swatches of fabric instead of a guest book.
"Having these quilts helps us to remember and makes us feel good," she says. "My husband's quilt brings him closer to me."
Sometimes Koerper pauses to read the names and loving words written by those she holds dear.
Sometimes I pause to read the women's names embroidered so long ago on my own quilt.
In my imagination, I join them in the basement of a church somewhere on the Illinois prairie, listening to talk of crops and weather embroidered with colorful scraps of gossip and news of birth and death and things to come.
The pattern of life.
When I close my eyes at night, I can still see them quilting.
Good night, I say.
Good night Edna, Daisy, Bertha, Ida, Edith, Winnie, Clara, Irene, Lula and Birdina.