From Back Creek Valley to the MSV: The Cather-Robinson Quilt

This week, I had the pleasure and honor of being asked to give a short presentation about the Cather-Robinson Quilt, c. 1848, which was the topic of my previous post on April 14th, 2019.

The Cather-Robinson Quilt at the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley, 20 June 2019.

The Cather-Robinson Quilt is a Signature Album Quilt that was made and inscribed by mid-nineteenth-century residents of Back Creek Valley, Virginia. Most of the inscribed identities are found documented in Quaker records. The quilt, which is inscribed with the date, "1848," first became known outside of its family when it was brought by Kit Robinson to the Seventh International Willa Cather Seminar in 1997. That year, the Seminar was held in Winchester, Virginia.

Kit was the wife of J. Kenneth Robinson, in whose family the quilt descended. Upon reviewing all of my research notes, I believe the quilt most likely was passed down from J. Kenneth's great-grandmother, Hannah Eleanor (Cather) Robinson (1819-1903), through her son, Silas Dean Robinson, to Silas' daughter, Ida Helen Robinson (whose married name was "Robinson," as well), to J. Kenneth Robinson and his wife, Kit.

Hannah Eleanor (whose middle name was also recorded as "Ellen, Ellenor, etc.) was a first cousin to William Cather, the grandfather of the famed American author, Willa Cather. Willa Cather was born in Back Creek Valley, (near Winchester, Virginia), which sits at the top of the Shenandoah Valley. She lived in the area for the first nine years of her life before her family migrated to Nebraska.

Upon seeing the Cather-Robinson Quilt, Cather scholar and quilt-lover Ann Romines recognized it as a piece of exceptional needlework. She also thought is might be an important quilt, historically. Her subsequent research and writings proved its connections to the ancestral community of Willa Cather.  Most interestingly, the people whose names are on blocks of the quilt actually lived in the place and time that was the setting for Cather's last novel, Sapphira and the Slave Girl.

Although she was not born until 1873, (twenty-five years after the quilt was made), Cather observed other quilts being made in her childhood home in Virginia, "Willow Shade." She listened to quilters from a spot beneath their quilt frame, hearing stories that would eventually become fictionalized in Sapphira....

Photograph of a print of "Willow Shade, art by Dorothy Henkle, 2004.
Copyright reserved: Shenandoah University.

My personal interest in the quilt started when I was realized that the Cather-Robinson Quilt was inscribed by many mid-nineteenth-century members of the Religious Society of Friends, and that it is related to several other Quaker Signature Album quilts that were made in and around Winchester, Virginia.

I was able to include the Cather-Robinson Quilt in the exhibit I guest-curated at the Virginia Quilt Museum in 2008, titled, "Quilts and Quaker Heritage." The quilt was again displayed in another exhibit of Quaker Quilts at the Winchester-Frederick County Historical Society in 2014 that I helped plan with Jenny Powers; the Society's Executive Director, Capricia Shull; and her Administrative Assistant, Sherry Jenkins. With the kind permission of John Jacobs and the Willa Cather Institute of Shenandoah University, which had received the quilt as a gift from Kit Robinson, I was also granted permission to take the quilt with me for presentations to local guilds and history groups.

Cather-Robinson Quilt, detail.

Growth at Shenandoah University that required restructuring of the university's options for quilt-storage spaces coincided with an opportunity for the quilt to become part of the professionally-curated collections at the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley (MSV). On June 20th, 2019, the transfer of ownership of the Cather-Robinson Quilt from the Willa Cather Institute of Shenandoah University to the MSV was marked with a series of brief presentations.

I was just one of several speakers that included the Seminar's Co-Director, Ann Romines, its Site Director, John Jacobs, and the Curator of Collections at the MSV, A. Nicholas Powers.* This event was scheduled to coincide with the 17 International Willa Cather Seminar, which you can read more about, here: https://www.willacather.org/events/17th-international-willa-cather-seminar

Cather-Robinson Quilt, detail.

We don't know who actually made the Cather-Robinson Quilt, or why, but just one of many possibilities is that it was made to celebrate the 1848 birth of Silas Dean Robinson, through whose direct descendants the quilt passed. Or, it may have been made to commemorate a marriage. Note its one one block of appliqued, cutout hearts: 

Cather-Robinson Quilt, detail. Collection of
the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley.

This block is remarkably similar to one found on the Hollinsgworth Family Quilt, c. 1858, (another quilt made and inscribed by the same local community of Friends). I suspect the Hollingsworth Family Quilt was made to commemorate the marriage of Jonathan and Mary Frances (Clevenger) Robinson.

Hollingsworth Family Quilt, c. 1858. Collection of
the Winchester-Frederick County Historical Society.

Over one hundred and seventy years after the Cather-Robinson Quilt was made; after being cared for over  generations by family members; and after being held for many years by the Willa Cather Institute of Shenandoah University, the quilt has found a new home at the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley.

NOTES & SELECTED SOURCES:

All text and photographs on this site are by Mary Holton Robare unless otherwise noted. All Rights Reserved. ©Mary Holton Robare 2019.

*During the July 20th, 2019 presentations at the MSV about the Cather-Robinson Quilt, Elaine Evans presented a framed photograph of the needlework she stitched depicting "Willow Shade" to the Willa Cather Foundation. This work is part of a large community needlework project entitled, "The Shenandoah Valley Tapestry -- A Journey Through Time." This project is described as, "a needlework narrative honoring and celebrating over 250 years of history of the northern Shenandoah Valley." 

Robare, Mary Holton. Quilts and Quaker Heritage: Selections from an Exhibition. Winchester, Virginia: Hillside Studios, 2008.

____, Quaker Quils: Snapshots of an Exhibition. Winchester, Virginia: Hillside Studios, 2014.

Romines, Ann, ed. Willa Cather's Southern Connections: New Essays on Cather and the South. Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia, 2000.

____, Historical Essays and Explanatory Notes, Mignon, Charles W., Ronning, Karl A. and Link, Frederick M., Textual Essay and Editing. Willa Cather Scholarly Edition: Sapphira and the Slave Girl. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2009.

____, "Willa Cather: A Life with Quilts," in Stout, Janis P. Willa Cather & Material Culture. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 2005, pps. 15-36.

Virginia Consortium of Quilters. Quilts of Virginia 1607-1899: The Birth of America Through the Eye of a Needle. Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Publishing Ltd., 2006.