Barn Quilts - an Artful Heritage

Choose a state where farming is important, and you’re sure to find barn quilts, single, giant, painted quilt blocks decorating barns and outbuildings. You might even be able to locate a road map for a barn quilt tour. Here in Wisconsin, just drive across the middle or southern portions of the state, and like a child playing a road trip game, you can look for and count the number of beautiful barn quilts splashed across the countryside—magnificent pieces of art that will have you saying ooh and ahh for miles. In fact, my first introduction to the beauty of barn quilts happened some years back while driving across Wisconsin’s Shawano County, renowned for hosting more of those beautiful 8’ by 8’ canvases than any other county in the United States.

The primary barn quilt size is 8 feet by 8 feet, though quilt block designs can be found of every size and on structures other than barns.

Photo Credits: William Sturgell from Pixabay

Barn quilts have a quite recent history of renewed popularity, but they date back nearly 300 years, well before barns were fully covered in paint at all. They arrived along with immigrants from the central regions of Europe; Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands who brought the idea of decorating their buildings with folk art designs representing their heritage, or in some cases their superstitions.

The Pennsylvania Dutch settlers who arrived primarily from Germany sought religious freedom and new beginnings. They incorporated folk art throughout their homes. Beautiful carvings, drawings, and paintings decorated everything from birth certificates to dower chests—and even tombstones. So why not barns? Some of the more secular-minded settlers, or those of superstitious religious backgrounds, decorated their barns with colorful six-pointed stars, sometimes set in a circle known as a hex sign. The hex signs were said to represent everything from good luck to fertility. Other paintings—those of stricter religious peoples—were simply beautiful designs that reflected a love of nature and beauty, or they were family symbols passed down for generations.

This one reminds me of a maple leaf. I wonder what it's meaning is.

I like how this one incorporates the date 1805, possibly the year of the farm's founding.

Gradually (and as the availability and cost of paint came down) the practice of painting designs on buildings spread throughout other parts of the country, particularly the Midwest. 

The popular resurgence of barn quilts began as recently as 2001, when a woman named Donna Sue Groves painted a quilt block on her tobacco barn in memory of her mother, and soon the idea spread. It has since become a movement. You can search for “barn quilt maps” that feature driving routes to viewing barn quilts all throughout the country. In fact, if you'd like to try your hand at design, barn quilt printables are available on line for anyone to create their own barn quilt.

This lovely barn quilt is on my cousin Barry's barn in central Wisconsin, painted by his wife Michelle.

Photo credit: Barry D Sparks

How about you? Do you have a barn quilt? Or have you ever thought about painting one on your outbuilding, home—or even a mailbox? Maybe now you will!

Loving life on the farm,

Naomi

www.naomimusch.com

Please join me July 1st and 2nd as multiple authors "Fall into Summer" with a Facebook event featuring book or swag giveaways with every author post! Find the event here: 

Fall into Summer Multi-Author Book Event

Looking for a change of pace? Try Heart Not Taken, a contemporary novella that'll fire up your 4th of July reading list.

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Foods From Our German Heritage

by Martha Rogers

Several years ago I became interested in genealogy and discovered that both my paternal and maternal grandfathers were of German heritage. I should have suspected as much when I was younger as my maternal grandmother made sauerkraut from scratch and it created the most awful smell in the house. Half the time I went to a friend’s house for dinner. Of course it was always served with bratwurst.

However, she made a German Christmas Fruit Cake that I absolutely loved.

When I visited Fredericksburg, Texas, I discovered many dishes my grandmother made were of German origin, but we called them something else in our house, and most of them were much better than that sauerkraut. I learned more about foods like Gugelhupf, Spaetzle, Lebkuchen, German meat balls and dark rye bread. My maternal grandmother, Mimi, made these but I knew them simply as bread, dumplings, ginger molasses cookies, and black bread.  

Although Germany and Austria are two distinct countries, the early immigrants from either were called Germans by their neighbors here in America. The first Germans to arrive were Mennonites brought here by William Penn for his colony. Not far behind them came the Moravians and Pietists and other religious sects. By 1776 Pennsylvania was nearly half German and Austrian. They established settlements that became what we know today as the Pennsylvania Dutch.

By 1830, Germans had begun to cross over to America by the thousands. Between 1830 and 1930 about six million immigrated to America. My great-great grandfathers were among them in the early 19th century.
My latest release, Love Stays True, is loosely based on the love story of my great-grandfather and great-grandmother in Louisiana. His father came to Louisiana from Pennsylvania in the early 19th century. The German name was Weissermann which was translated to Whiteman for easier spelling. 

When I visited in Germany in 1996, I went to Munich, Augsburg, and Oberammergau. We ate at a Rathskeller which is a restaurant or bar. I found the foods there were absolutely delicious, especially the desserts.

 Dishes like apple strudel shown on the left, wiener schnitzel, German potato salad, and springerle were embraced by those who lived near or in the German colonies.

 The Germans loved their sweets. The Sacher Torte, Dobos Torte, and the Linzer Torte are prime examples as well as Black Forest Cake and Pfeffernuesse cookies shown below.

In the Pennsylvania Dutch region and in areas where we still have communities with a rich German heritage, we will find foods made from original recipes handed down through the generations. I found two of Mimi’s and I share the fruit cake one with you today. It is much more moist and more like cake than traditional fruit cake.  

German Fruit Cake
3/4 cup butter                           3/4 tsp. soda                                        Cream butter, sugar and eggs until
2 cups sugar                             1 cup buttermilk                                    light. Sift dry ingredients together.
4 eggs                                      2/3 cup cherry preserves                       Add to creamed mixture
3 cups flour                              2/3 cup apricot preserves                      alternately with buttermilk to which
1/2 tsp. allspice                        2/3 cup pineapple preserves                  soda has been added. Fold in re-
1/2 tsp. cinnamon                     1 cup chopped pecans                          maining ingredients. Bake in two
1/2 tsp. nutmeg                         1 tsp. vanilla                                         greased and floured 9x5x3 inch pan 

                                                                                                            or one large tube pan. Bake at 325
                                                                                                            degrees for 1 1/2 hours. Cool in pan
                                                                                                            15 minutes before removing.

If you'd like recipes for any of the others, let me know. If I have it, I will send it to you. 

Martha started late in life but now has multiple novels and novellas in print. She lives in Houston, Texas with her husband and is active in their church where she sings in the choir and teaches a class on Sundays and he serves as a deacon. She is a member of ACFW, The Woodlands Chapter of ACFW: WOTS and IWA! She is Co-Director and a regular member of the faculty for the Texas Christian Writers Conference held in Houston each August.