quiltersmuse.com Blog

This coming week is an election week and I turn to thoughts of Susan B. Anthony, without whom women might still not have the right to vote. About six months ago, I asked myself a simple question, “Did Susan B. Anthony make quilts, and if she did make them, where are they now?”

All good research starts with a question like that, or so it seems. My inquisitiveness led me to read her officially biography of hundreds of pages, written at her Rochester, New York home that is now a museum called the Susan B. Anthony House. Her biographer knew her well, and had access to all of her letters, speeches and other ephemera filed in boxes in an attic space. The first volume of the book was published during her lifetime, but the second half of the book did not appear in print until years later.

I had been fortunate, a year or so ago, to listen to a re-enactor’s presentation of Susan B. Anthony’s life at a University of New Hampshire presentation. It only fueled my interest and indirectly spawned my current article in The Quilter magazine about the life, the words, and the quilts of Susan B. Anthony.

In the meantime, we were in contact with folks from three different museums, traveling out of state to see her birthplace, for ourselves. We have been in touch with a quilt club that reproduced two of her quilts. We have viewed a video about her life and work. This task of research was all-consuming, for months.

Susan B. Anthony liked to have her photo taken in profile as her eyes were somewhat crossed from childhood, a condition she blamed on forced reading lessons from a very early age

Susan B. Anthony was strong-willed, opinionated, and downright stubborn. Good for us! It is unfortunate that she did not live to see the date of November 2, 1920 when the first women were allowed to vote in the United States. I learned so much in the course of researching this project. I read three or four other complete biographies, each of which added a little more insight and some of which had conflicting information to her “official” biography.

That is all I shall say, for now. I hope you have a chance to pick up a copy of the magazine (January 2011 issue, available now). I do my best to bring well-researched articles to the publication.

P.S. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was Susan B. Anthony’s friend and long time associate. I have been alerted by a reader that Elizabeth’s first name is misrepresented in the magazine as “Harriet.” I am sorry for any inconvenience. I am not quite sure how this error crept in. Any student of history will know the difference, but for those who do not, the correct name should be “Elizabeth Cady Stanton.” I hope that everyone enjoys the article. I went to a great deal of trouble, travel, trials and tribulations to create it.

Patricia Cummings, independent researcher, book author (with a soon to be announced new book title), quilt historian

Today, I spent some time watching the History Channel. Life cannot be replayed, but tapes of it sometimes can be. Not all of the tragedy of 9-11-2001 was caught on film, thank goodness. By now, nine years later, I cannot remember or even count the number of times I have seen the towers falling, or the planes crashing into them. It was frightening, at the time, because we did not know what was happening or why. We probably still do not fully understand “why,” or who was behind these activities. It seemed like the whole country was under attack.

For a time, in the aftermath of the event, America seemed to be coming together while trying to heal as a nation. Today, the divisiveness of political parties and personal agendas seem to have set aside the lesson, “United we stand, divided we fall.” There is more hatred around than is healthy.

What we, as Americans, shall never be able to understand is how other Americans, just going about their daily routines, could be slaughtered en masse. Yes, now we have a group of deceased, instant heroes to recall. I can bet that their families could do without the hero status, if only to welcome their loved ones into their arms again, to sit at the same table with them, and to plan for the future, possibilities that ended on that fateful day.

Our response, one of military intervention in the Middle East has not had a satisfactory outcome. It is impossible to win a war against an enemy who can retreat over a border to another country for safe haven and to regroup and rearm. It is too simplistic to say that the effort is another Vietnam. It isn’t at all! The land terrain is different, as well as the amount of fighting in urban settings. The bottom line for most folks is that the so-called perpetrator of 9-11, Osama bin Laden, has never been caught. In fact, we do not hear anything at all about him now. Have you noticed? This is strange! Where is he and why has he not been captured? Is there a reason why the task is impossible? Is he dead, or just waiting to do us more harm?

My reaction to revisiting the events of 9-11 on television today are mixed. I am at once very sad and certainly sympathetic toward families who lost loved ones. At the same time, I am incredulous, saying, “How could this have happened?” and “How can we prevent it from ever happening again?” As Americans, we were shaken to the core. Yet, due to military decisions made, how many more innocent lives have gone to the permanent peace that is Eternity?

When I was a teenager, my Dad introduced me to a song called, “Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream.” Some of the word say… “I’d dreamed they’d put an end to war.” With the world’s people becoming more fanatic, or so it seems, I have no hope of seeing a lasting peace in my lifetime. On this sad day, I cannot even imagine the many who died in the trade towers. We take a moment to pay them homage, as well as the policemen, fire fighters and others who led some workers to safety. God bless them all, and God bless America!

Patricia Cummings