Treasures in the Trunk
   Mary Bywater Cross
  1993 Rutledge Hill Press, Nashville TN USA
   ISBN: 1558532374


Memories, dreams and accomplishments of the pioneer women who traveled the Oregon Trail. Between 1840 & 1870 thousands of women arrived in the Northwest Territory after months on the move. In their wagons, in specially built trunks to protect them from the hazards of weather & rivers, fire & dust, they brought a host of heirloom quilts to find new homes in the wilderness of a new frontier.

Published in time for the 150 Celebration of the The Oregon Trail from Independence, Missouri to Oregon City in the Northwest Territory, which is now Oregon State, this author has given us a delightfully informative history from a woman's point of view of the preparations for that arduous overland journey; of the women & their quilts & the frontier experience of that time.

Quilting has ever been a community project - mothers sewing with daughters, sisters with sisters & neighbors with neighbors. My mother was a quilter of hexagon rosettes & many were the winter afternoons, in front of our coal fire with a pot of tea & biscuits, listening to the BBC radio broadcasts, we would cut & tack, place & sew the fabrics of our lives - shirts & frocks, sheets & curtains.

After I'd emigrated to the American Midwest I drove the highways & byways that crisscross the original Oregon Trail & ended up in the Pacific Northwest. Mary Bywater Cross' Treasures in the Trunks gives me special insight into those long ago foremothers & their life on the Trail.

Here in the Northwest, daughters of the pioneering loggers' families taught me how they made homesteader quilts from pajamas, petticoats & threadbare blankets & I've had many, many hours of comfort & peace, working with much-loved materials & the splash of colors in this green, grey & brown world.

Treasures in the Trunk is a splendid catalog of the inventiveness of these women, their eye for color & design & the stories of where they came from, were they going to & what happened along the way. Some pioneer women even worked on their quilts while their wagons were circled for the night, allowing themselves moments of community & peace amid the rigors & excitements all about them.

Each quilt is presented in detailed photography with a discussion of how it was sewn, fabrics of the time, stitching & designs: White on White; Red & Green Tulip; Poke Stalk, Double Irish Chain; Rose of Sharon; Lily; Harlow Album Quilt; Star; Setting Sun; Oregon Rose; Wandering Foot & Oregon Trail is just a handful of the featured quilts.

There are sepia-toned daguerretype formal family poses, black & white photos of the homes these pioneers built in the wide open spaces of the Western Frontier & full color prints of the many, brilliant quilts.

Mary Bywater Cross has done quilters, pioneers & women in general a profound service by her research, writing about & cataloging these fragile & beautiful works of art & comfort. There is something deeply connective about the fabrics & designs created by these intrepid & enduring women.

Do you know what a “housewife” is? I thought I did, Mary Bywater Cross however, knows of another kind. Do you know the sizes & names of the Trains? Fascinating details that make Treasures in the Trunk a fascinating way to learn history.

It is not surprising that many women wrote diaries along the Trail & these are often the sources of the details of watering holes, miles traveled, cattle run, birth & deaths & Indian encounters.

Treasures in the Trunk is far, far more than a simple quilt sampler, it is a fascinating diary of an adventure that fired the imagination of people as far away as Russia, Italy & Scandinavia & generations of girls & boys, looking for the bright & wild edges beyond which lived strange & wonderful things.

Mary Bywater Cross is a quilt researcher specializing in women's history. A graduate of the University of Iowa, she is also a board member of the American Quilt Study Group.

More from Mary Bywater Cross: Quilts & Women of the Mormon Migrations: Treasures of Transition.

Do check out my Interview with Quilt Historian Mary Bywater Cross - it is fascinating!
(01/07/01)

Rebecca