Sewn in 1916 by Clara Cook, a teacher at the Unalaska Jesse Lee Home. Featuring the names of 22 students and their favorite characters from "Mother Goose" rhymes, the quilt has found its way back home nearly 100 years after it was created.
TAMAR BEN-YOSEF, Alaska Newspapers Inc
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Jesse Lee Home quilt finds its way back homeUNALASKA, Alaska -- The Museum of the Aleutians recently received a precious gift.
It is a handmade quilt, sewn in 1916 by Clara Cook, a teacher at the Unalaska Jesse Lee Home and donated to the museum by a Michigan couple who purchased the quilt more than 30 years ago.
Featuring the names of 22 students and their favorite characters from "Mother Goose" rhymes, the quilt has found its way back home nearly 100 years after it was created.
In 1973, Kathie and Steve Assenmacher walked into a small antique shop in a tiny Michigan town by the name of Hartland. They were looking for quilts for their collection. One unique quilt attracted their attention because of its buildings, the dates and the children's names embroidered on it.
They bought the quilt not knowing its immense historical significance and what it would come to mean to them.
Just when they were about to leave the shop, the owner remembered that she had three scrapbooks that came along with the quilt. In them were photos and stories from the Jesse Lee Home during its earlier days in Unalaska.
"It was when we received the Clara Cook scrapbooks with all the photos and the wonderful stories that we realized how truly special the quilt was," said Steve Assenmacher in a letter the couple wrote to Zoya Johnson, director of the museum.
The quilt became even more special to the family when Steve Assenmacher's mother, who lived in Dutch Harbor in the early 1940s, enjoyed reading through the stories and the pictures.
While student teaching in Michigan, Kathie Assenmacher took those scrapbooks to school to read the stories to her students, who found them fascinating.
They wanted to know more about the history of the home and its residents. Letters the students wrote to the Unalaska City Schools ended up in the hands of Ray Hudson, a Unalaska teacher at the time who was in the process of writing - with his students - the second volume of the Cuttlefish book series.
With only one request that the Unalaska students do the artwork for the third issue of Cuttlefish, the Assenmachers agreed to donate the scrapbooks to the school so they could be used for the Cuttlefish books.
In 1977, Edith Newhall, who was born in Unalaska in 1903, got word of the quilt and was amazed.
In a letter to Hudson, she wrote: "I remember it well. In fact I am quite sure I made some of the blocks The Mission had fancywork classes two evenings a week. We girls sewed while Miss Winchell read aloud good books to us."
Although they felt all along that the quilt's place was back in Unalaska, the Assenmachers personal connection to the place and the quilt itself were so cherished by them that they could not bring themselves to donate it until now.
"It is time that the Clara Cook quilt is returned to where it was so lovingly made, so many years ago," said Assenmacher in the letter to the museum.
The quilt arrived in Unalaska just in time for Christmas .
Hudson, who has been writing about the Jesse Lee Home for about 30 years, is in the process of compiling the biographies of the 22 children named on the quilt. They will be displayed alongside it at the museum. "It is important that the people in Unalaska know how important this donation is," said Johnson.
"The quilt is a link between the generations and a reminder for the people to appreciate the fact that there is a place such as the museum that is this trust worthy," the museum director said.
A special display case is required for the large quilt, which measures 6.5 feet by 6.5 feet.
Such a case is very expensive according to Johnson, and may require a special grant to have one built.
By TAMAR BEN-YOSEF (AP)
Alaska Newspapers Inc.
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