Threads of Time: Quilts and Textiles

David Minto wore this vest for his marriage to Jane Johnstone in Annan, Scotland, in February 1835.

In May 1840, the Minto family left Scotland for the United States. They lived in a Quaker settlement in Canandaigua, New York, for several years before heading west to Lake County. They acquired land adjacent to Loon Lake on the northwest corner of Deep Lake and Grass Lake roads. There, they cleared trees to build a log house and barn.

On March 17, 1849, David Minto, Sr. passed away, leaving Jane and their five children.

The family lovingly saved his vest, passing it down through three generations before donating it to the Dunn Museum.

Four generations of a family used this handmade quilt as they moved from Pennsylvania to Virginia and eventually to Waukegan. In 1850, Catharine Ann Kase (1825-1899) made the quilt at her family’s home in Danville, Pennsylvania. She was 24 years old, and her future husband, George W. West, was living as a boarder with the family. The pattern with brown and tan fabrics was based on a popular children’s game, “Puss in the Corner.” In the game, a child stood in each corner of the room with one standing in the center, and they all tried to swap places. Catharine and George married on April 11, 1854, and the quilt became part of her wedding trousseau. Catharine passed the quilt to her oldest daughter’s son, starting a tradition of passing the quilt to the next generation. In 1971, Catharine’s great-grandson, Charles Broughton Bernard III, became the last family recipient of the quilt. Charles had moved to Waukegan after serving with the U.S. Navy in World War II.

Mary Davison (1858-1937) wore this maroon silk moiré and lace dress for her marriage to Jay T. Allanson in Diamond Lake near Mundelein on February 28, 1883. The couple met after the Davison family moved from Lee County, Illinois to a farm adjacent to the Allanson’s farm east of Diamond Lake.

The dress was likely the bride’s “Sunday best” and considered more practical than a white wedding dress worn only once. The protruding bustle and accordion box pleats on the skirt are typical of the early 1880s.

This silk patchwork “crazy” quilt belonged to Elsie Ferguson Bairstow (1881-1973) and was possibly made by her mother, Mary Jane Cole Ferguson (1860-1948).

The crazy quilt design creatively uses textile remnants and is one of the oldest patterns known. This quilt showcases the creator’s self-expression and inspiration from traditional Japanese art in her use of fans, flowers and lack of a repeating pattern.

In 1907, Catherine “Katie” Obenauf (1888-1985), then 19 years old, made this friendship signature quilt.

Obenauf lived in Fremont Center, a community primarily settled by German immigrants, located near the intersections of Fremont Center Road, Erhart Road and Route 60.

The quilt was a record of her friendships and a historical record of those who lived in the community. She put her name in the middle of the design and surrounded it with the names of her friends, including members of the Dietz, Wagner, Hertel, Behm, Dorfler, Ullrich, Deinlein and Diebold families.

Friendship quilts became popular in the early 1800s. Friends and loved ones made and signed them and often gave them as going-away gifts.

On October 25, 1910, Katie Obenauf married Henry Hertel. The couple raised their family on their Chardon Road farm in Grayslake.

Sometimes known as “whites,” this lightweight summer dress was worn by Anna May Wilton Bratzke (1874-1968).

Anna was a seamstress and had a good eye for fashion. The lightweight material of lace-trimmed white dresses became popular summer wear and a symbol of leisure and wealth.

Anna wore this dress after her marriage to Charles Bratzke in January 1905. The couple lived on a farm near Anna’s parents, William and Emma Wilton, in the area of Drury Lane and Rollins Road in Avon Township.

John A. Rasmussen (1905-1966) wore this denim apron at his job in the Frank G. Hough Company’s tool and die department. Frank G. Hough hired Rasmussen in 1941. He was one of Hough’s first employees at the Libertyville factory, which manufactured Hough Payloaders.

Jill Martin (1940-2009) of Gurnee wore this red, white and blue bouclé suit. Martin received master’s degree in English from Oklahoma State University and moved to Illinois with her husband in 1964.

She went to Hein’s department store in downtown Waukegan to purchase a new suit for a job interview at Warren Township High School in Gurnee. Martin was offered the teaching job and credited the suit for helping her make a good impression.

A love for nature inspired Joyce Proper to make this quilt showcasing Lake County’s flora and fauna. One of the plants featured on the quilt is round-lobed Hepatica.

Proper first encountered the plant in the woods of northern Wisconsin, where she grew up. When she moved to Lake County and became a volunteer steward at Grant Woods Forest Preserve in Ingleside, she was thrilled to find the plant there.

She started the quilt in the late 1960s and set it aside before taking it up again and finishing it in 1975. Previously focused on traditional quilts and patterns, she broke new ground with this nature-inspired design.

Women from each Lake County Homemakers Extension Association unit created a square for this quilt. The individual squares displayed the unit’s name, date founded, emblem or something unique to their part of the county. Several women pieced and quilted the squares together to build a meaningful whole.

Today, the Association is known as the Lake County Association for Home & Community Education. It is a nonprofit organization providing women opportunities to increase personal growth, leadership development and community involvement.

When Peace Corps volunteer Barbara Gosh needed proper Thai “teacher clothes,” she went to a cooperative manned by local villagers. There, she bought locally woven fabric. The skirt and blouse were woven as one piece and then cut into clothing. Village women sewed the garments using a Bernina Zig Zag sewing machine for the cutwork details on the blouse.

Gosh served in the Peace Corps from 2000 to 2002. She was given the choice to serve in Thailand or Hungary and chose Thailand to help teachers with new methods of instructing students. Her passion for the Peace Corps began in 1961 when she heard President John F. Kennedy’s call to service.

According to Gosh, volunteers had three goals: to assist a country with its request for assistance, to follow the culture of the country and share their experiences with others once back home.