Historical Methodist quilt discovered at retirement home

A UMNS photo by Linda Worthington, UMConnection John Wesley reads his Bible in a section of the quilt.

Sept. 14, 2004      

By Linda Worthington*

WASHINGTON (UMNS) - It was pure coincidence - or was it the hand of God? Judy Shapiro wonders.

One day in 2000, she came upon a piece of Methodist and textile history. She discovered what is called the John Wesley Baltimore Album Quilt, rolled up in a storage room at Asbury Methodist Village retirement home in Gaithersburg, Md.

By February 2003, Shapiro could confirm the quilt’s historical value as a work of art from 19th-century Methodism.

Baltimore Album Quilts tell a story in the appliquéd and embroidered pieces, often commemorating an event, place or person. The Methodist Church of the mid-19th century was a leader in the art form. Small groups of women in churches (sewing circles) often made the quilts as gifts to their clergy, but the quilts were also used as wedding presents and for other occasions.

The John Wesley quilt completed a two-week display in mid-September in the Dadian Gallery at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington. This is expected to be the last public showing of the fragile piece of Methodist history for many years.

How the quilt ended up in a storeroom at Asbury is a mystery. What is known is that it was left to the retirement home in 1966 by Lena Weber of Baltimore, who gave it to her aunt, a resident at Asbury Methodist Home, according to Mary Waldron, an Asbury Village board member. Finding it “is very exciting,” she says.

The legacy has increased in value over time. Today, the quilt’s value is anywhere from $25,000 to $150,000, Shapiro says. Like any piece of art, the value fluctuates.

But it isn’t the monetary value that interests viewers. “Its historical value is why it’s important,” says Deborah Sokolove, director of the gallery.

Shapiro agrees. It’s important in its historical context, she says. It’s also important to the Methodist Church, which provided the leadership in the Baltimore Album Quilt movement, and for women, for whom the quilts were often artistic and cultural outlets at a time when women had little else, she says.

A UMNS photo by Linda Worthington, UMConnection The quilt dates back to 1849 and was completed in 1850.

What the appliquéd quilt reveals is that it was made by a group of women at Old South Baltimore Church more than 150 years ago. That church ceased to exist in the late 1950s, according to the Rev. Edwin Schell, Baltimore-Washington Conference historian. It eventually was merged with other churches to become today’s Olive Branch-Good Shepherd United Methodist Church in southwest Baltimore.

According to dates still visible, the quilt was made in 1849 and 1850. Shapiro surmises that it was given as a gift to the church’s pastor on Feb. 14 (a date stitched often into the quilt squares), as he was leaving.

In the center horizontal row of five, second from the right, is the square picturing John Wesley reading his Bible. It is the only known textile that includes a penned rendering of John Wesley, Shapiro says. Next to it, in the center of the quilt, is a bucolic scene that is full of symbols. For instance, three birds in flight give a message of resurrection and the Trinity. The square to the right of the John Wesley block includes two angels, “very rarely seen in Baltimore Album quilts,” Shapiro says.

The skills of the women making the quilt varied. The workmanship on some of the 25 squares in the predominantly red, gold, green and white quilt is uneven. Some is quite crude, some of it finely done. The quilting, the overstitching which binds the face of the quilt to its inner batting and backpiece, is consistent and seems to have been done by one person, after the squares were stitched together.

Shapiro was artist-in-residence at the seminary in 2002, where she taught and lectured on quilting. She is an expert on Baltimore Album Quilts, a singular textile art form that was prominent on the East Coast from 1845 to 1855.

Lovely Lane Museum, in the historic Lovely Lane United Methodist Church in Baltimore, has a few Baltimore Album quilts, which were part of a traveling exhibit to Japan in 2001 and an exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Art from November to May. That Baltimore Museum of Art exhibition also included the John Wesley quilt.

The quilt belongs to Asbury Village, where it was found.

Shapiro, who is shepherding the quilt for the time being, is creating a reproduction, square by square, from patterns drawn from the original. She has already made a half dozen, including the John Wesley square (without the Vincent signature). “The quilt is my mission,” she says.

*Worthington is a communications associate for the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference’s UMConnection newspaper.

News media contact: Tim Tanton, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.

Suggested Resources The Baltimore Album Quilt Creating a quilt group Lovely Lane United Methodist Church Olive Branch-Good Shepherd United Methodist Church Wesley Theological Seminary John Wesley History

Suggested Articles Bishops see quilting as sign of hope in Pakistan Afghan refugee women struggle to survive in Pakistan