A large crowd descended upon the Nature & Heritage Tourism Center in White Springs for a dedication ceremony and luncheon on Wednesday, Feb. 25, as the town officially joined the Florida Quilt Trail, as well as recognized and honored two talented quilters from the community; Nancy Morgan and her Double Wedding Ring quilt and Queenie Udell’s Yo-Yo quilt.
The project in White Springs received financial assistance from the VisitFlorida Cultural Heritage Rural Nature Marketing Grant Program.
“Today, White Springs joins the Florida Quilt Trail and we’re very excited about this special event,” said White Springs Mayor Helen Miller, who presided over the ceremony. She thanked Raymond Cheshire, owner of the Adams Country Store, for allowing two beautiful quilt block paintings by artist Janet Moses to be hung on the side of the building that visitors can easily see as they enter the town of White Springs. There will soon be plaques installed under the two quilt blocks with all the pertinent information about each quilt.
Families and friends of Morgan and Udell, as well as others from the community, were in the audience listening intently as local resident Merri McKenzie offered a background of the barn quilt movement and the town’s journey to become a part of the Florida Quilt Trail. She also related the significance of the two quilts on display and the extraordinary women who made them.
Paul and Stephanie Metts from Trenton both spoke about the quilt trail that runs through their town, which serves as the headquarters for the Florida Quilt Trail, and how they are working to improve tourism and their town’s economy by being a part of the quilt trail. “There are over 7,000 barn quilts in 48 states and Canada,” said Paul Metts.
Barn quilts are painted quilt squares on boards that are mounted on a barn or other such building. The enthusiasm from quilters and quilt lovers for following quilt trails across the country is growing by leaps and bounds, Metts said. “Quilters are usually pretty rabid about that,” said Metts. “They drive their husbands and they take them all over the country. If there’s a quilt trail, they go to it.” Metts said both Trenton and White Springs barn quilt trail information will be included in a new book by Suzi Parron. “We’re both going to be in a book that will be published and distributed nationally,” Metts said to the crowd. “You couldn’t buy that kind of publicity for $1 million or more. It will be all over the country. Quilters from everywhere will buy this book. What an advertisement for small communities,” he added.
Local Johnny Bullard read from his “Around the Banks of the Suwannee” article that ran in the Suwannee Democrat on Feb. 25 and again in the Jasper News on Feb. 26 where he wrote about how to make an American quilt. Quilt enthusiast McKenzie was instrumental in getting the project started with help from Miller. “My vision over the years has always been to find a vehicle to showcase the quilters of White Springs,” said McKenzie. “I had worked with Nancy Morgan and Queenie Udell as a young artist in residence under the general guidance of folklorist Peggy Bulger.”
As a fiber artist, McKenzie said she was impressed with both Morgan and Udell’s quilting styles. She said they were not only making quilts for warmth, but also making artistic statements using fabric and traditional techniques. “They were truly artists,” said McKenzie. “They had the gift of seeing how patterns and colors worked together. It was because of their insights that were nurtured by this community that their quilts were elevated from ordinary to extraordinary.”
Artist Janet Moses said when she was approached by McKenzie to do the quilt blocks, she looked at the Yo-Yo quilt and said, “That is not a quilt square,” to which McKenzie replied, “That’s debatable.” After looking at it further, Moses said she was able to pick out one piece that would serve as the quilt square. “Sixty-four squares on the painting,” she said. As for Morgan’s quilt, Moses said it was a work of love to paint because of its history.
Nancy Morgan
Kerry Waldron fondly spoke about his grandmother’s double wedding ring quilt. “They started out in the Adams Country Store quilting and they used to meet on Wednesdays,” said Waldron. “There would be a group of ladies that came from Columbia and Suwannee counties. They’d bring their lunch and they’d share their lunch together.” In the process, he said, they would also share their lives, their joy and their pain, as well as their quilt. “Each lady had a turn at having their quilt worked on,” he said. “I used to ask Grandma, well, that’s just a place for y’all to gossip, isn’t it? She said, no, we were just getting caught up on the news.”
Morgan was born in a log house near Tom’s Creek in Echols County, Ga. and later she and her husband settled just north of White Springs after Morgan’s father died in 1937. Morgan’s mother taught her how to make her first quilt when she was 13-years-old. It was a string top that was quilted on a frame that hung from the ceiling by four pieces of rope. The quilt backing was five yards of white homespun and the batting was cotton filling left over after a local distiller had finished straining turpentine. Over the course of her lifetime, Morgan made over 200 quilts, with the Double Wedding Ring quilt becoming her signature piece. In 1985, Morgan was the recipient of the Florida Folk Heritage Award for her knowledge of Southern pioneer folklife and the practice of quilting. Morgan passed away in 2010, but her quilting legacy lives on.
Queenie Udell
Queenie Udell’s great niece Coretta Udell talked about her childhood and how her great aunt tried to convince her to learn how to quilt, something that just wasn’t meant to be, according to Coretta. “She was the closest thing to a grandma that I had,” Coretta said. “She wasn’t an educated woman, but she was wise beyond measure. She has quilts all over town and all over Florida. I guess we’re going to go into her house and find the rest of her quilts.” Queenie Udell was born Sept. 29, 1919, in Jefferson County and passed away just a few days before this dedication ceremony. She moved to the Black Bay area of White Springs in the late 40s when she married her husband Melvin Udell, and she learned from her mother and grandmother how to make the Yo-Yo quilts using flour sacks and old clothing. Everything was sewn by hand. She used to say, “People gives me scraps and I just sews ‘um.”
One of her Yo-Yo quilts from the early 70s is in the archive collection at Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center. White Springs Vice Mayor Walter McKenzie said his wife Merri happened to take Queenie’s quilt to her at the rest home and tried to explain how it was going to be memorialized on the side of the Adams Country Store. Merri said she thought she saw a glimmer of a smile and a twinkle in her eye, he said. “I think Queenie was pleased about that,” said Walter. “She passed away that night.”
Toward the end of the program, both Kerry Waldron and Coretta Udell had the honor of cutting the ribbon outside the Adams Country Store just underneath where Janet Moses’ two paintings of the quilt blocks are hung.
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