Historic Quilt

Family history is a subject of which I seem to know very little.  The more I learn of it, the more I realize there is to know.  Still, I pick up pieces here and there.  One of my more recent acquisitions included a tactile experience.   

If I got the story right, this quilt was given to my mother by her grandmother (or possibly by a great aunt...I'll need to check my sources.)

The note that accompanies the quilt (partially pictured above), though difficult to decipher, tells the story of the quilt.  "It was made by my mother (name) and my grandma (name) in about 1886 out of my dad's brother (name) army blankets of Shilo."  Just in case any question remains, part of the note clarifies: these were blankets used by soldiers during the Civil War.

I think that is one thing I enjoyed so much about Israel - being able to see, touch, and feel history.  There is very little of that in Montana where most history doesn't go back more than 200 years tops.  Sometimes you can find arrowheads that might be a bit older, but that's pretty much the limit.  This quilt is no where near as old as some of the ruins I saw in Israel, but it's still a clue to the past, a picture of what life was like then, a reminder that the men who used those blankets and the women who sewed them together were as real and as human as you or I.