Victorian Houses: The Kennard House in Lincoln, Nebraska

A footnote from history by Stephanie Grace Whitson

I enjoy taking advantage of the opportunity to see lovely old homes and to imagine the lives of those who occupied them. Here in my home town of Lincoln, Nebraska, the Thomas P. Kennard house is a lovely example of Italianate Victorian style. Kennard was Nebraska's first Secretary of State. His 1869 home is the oldest structure still standing on the capitol city's original plat. For people like me who love learning about the past, stepping through the front door is an exercise in time travel. 

To get an idea of the "buzz" this house would have created when it was going up, take a look at the photo at right, which shows a view of the house from the first state capitol building. What's the first thing you notice? The "nothing"? Me, too. I'd say that locating a state capitol in this place was an exercise of faith in good things to come. 





Can you imagine moving onto this treeless plain from, say, Indiana or Illinois? I wonder at Mrs. Kennard's reaction. I wonder if she ever looked East from that cupola and longed for home. And trees.

The corbels and other architectural elements on the home's exterior are lovely, but I'm glad it isn't my job to keep them painted!

The first thing I noticed stepping inside this home was how very dim the lighting was compared to what I'm accustomed to in 2018. Reading by lamplight sounds romantic, but I'm thankful I don't have to do it. 

Isn't that walnut bed gorgeous? I love everything about this room ... the burled walnut headboard, the hair wreath in the oval frame n the opposite wall ... and the very early treadle sewing machine that is just out of sight at the lower left of the photograph.

Do you see the date on the drop of the bedcover (in the shadow of the chairback)? Is that stuffed work? I don't know, but if my eyes aren't fooling me, the date is 1869. Who made it? For what special occasion? 

See the needle point chair sitting at the machine? I have one much like it that belonged to Jennie Venetress Kingsbury, my children's great-grandmother. I just stopped typing to take a photo of it (see photo at right). My needlepoint replaced the original silk covering that was rotting away. 

The pillow shams on the bed in this period bedroom are examples of redwork embroidery. I purchased a similar pair at an auction in Nebraska. Mine are dated 1869. Since Nebraska became a state in 1867, my pillow shams could have come west with a Nebraska pioneer! 

Inevitably, a visit to a house like this fills my mind with questions. What about you? Do you like visiting historic homes? If so,  you might want to take a virtual visit to the Kennard Home by viewing this video, which features the amazing Jim McKee, historian and storyteller par excellence:https://www.c-span.org/video/?326070-1/thomas-kennard-house 


The home on the cover of my novel Sarah's Patchwork is right across the street from the Nebraska State Capitol. It inspired the house where Sarah Biddle worked and met the wealthy man who would fall in love with her. I was honored when Jim and Linda McKee, who operated a wonderful local bookstore at the time, sponsored a book release party at this home, which had been saved from near ruin by someone who looked beyond plaster and lath into the lives of the people who inhabited this grand old lady.


Sarah's Patchwork was inspired by the history of 19th century orphan trains. Each scrap of fabric in Sarah's patchwork quilt bears silent witness to the rich life experienced by a strong, resourceful woman who stitched "the tears of the past into a treasure for tomorrow." Find the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Sarahs-Patchwork-Keepsake-Legacies-Book-ebook/dp/B01DV1SX9Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1533673916&sr=8-1&keywords=sarah%27s+patchwork

Quilt Mysteries

A footnote from history by Stephanie Grace Whitson

Quilts played an integral part in my becoming a novelist. Early in my writing journey, I purchased a set of unfinished quilt blocks at a country auction, delighted by the colors (madder browns and rusts), amazed by the maker's skill (diamonds where the points MATCHED), and sad that the pieces hadn't ever been connected to make a quilt. I wondered why. In a fabric dating class, I later learned that those pieces predated 1867, the date when Nebraska became a state. How did they get here? Why weren't they ever finished? What story could they tell? Those musings played a role in the story of Jesse King, a woman traveling the Oregon Trail, and that story became my first novel, Walks the Fire. 

The stories behind old quilts inspire me to study them and to help research the quilts in the collection at the International Quilts Study Center and Museum, where I'm a member of the Genealogical Task Force, comprised of five volunteers who delight in spending hours researching names and dates. 

Some of the quilts in my personal collection suggest stories, too. Here are a few of the mysteries they represent to my overactive imagination ... and the answers I've found so far:

This wool quilt, purchased at an estate auction in Palmyra, Nebraska, suggests that something important happened in January, 1926. The quilt isn't finished (there's no back), but embroidered initials and symbols surely had significance for the family. Lesson learned: ask questions on the day of the sale. Don't expect to learn much when the sale is over and the family has parted ways. 

I purchased the quilt represented by the single block on the right as an intentional rescue. While it's lovely, it's faded and its price at a local estate sale proved it wasn't valued by anyone but me. I brought it home and it wasn't until I photographed it months later that I realized the maker had quilted both initials and the year 1880 into the sashing. Who was "A.E.S."? What happened in 1880? Quilted hearts make me wonder A.E.S. was a bride-to-be making a wedding quilt, but that's just a story. I don't know. I never will. The mystery remains. 

I purchased this quilt (left) at an antique mall in North Carolina, and while I don't know much about it other than the fact that the vibrant graphics appealed to me,I do think the maker may have lived on a farm. Why? The back is a walnut-dyed feed sack that once contained "Choice Virginia cornmeal." Was the quilt made in Virginia? Possibly. How did it get to North Carolina? Mystery. 

It's not uncommon to find silk ribbons incorporated into Victorian crazy quilts. One of mine includes this ribbon that commemorates an "FE&MVRR" outing October 16, 1888. Research reveals that the Fremont Elkhorn

& Missouri Valley Railroad was established in 1869 Nebraska and often called "the Elkhorn." I imagine a Victorian lady taking the excursion and enjoying it enough that she kept the ribbon and added it to the crazy quilt.  

The origin of the "mysterious" stains on this quilt is no longer a mystery. I was drawn to this lovely quilt in spite of those stains because it's entirely machine quilted, and that's unusual for a late 1800s quilt. A textile expert told me about those stains many years later. This is what can happen when a quilt touches the wood of a cedar chest. This quilt was probably stored in a cedar chest, and the wood oils migrated into the fabric. Ouch. I still love it. 

And here's the last quilt mystery for this post. I wanted this quilt because of the elephant. Someone loved the
circus! Look at those blue eyes! But ... why has the embroidery been picked out of the block that spells NANY? Did someone leave the "c" out of the name Nancy and intend to fix it? Or did Nany do something terrible enough to make a quiltmaker want to remove his/her name from the quilt? (I used that idea in my novel The Shadow on the Quilt.)

Do you cherish something that suggests a mystery you'd like solved?

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Stephanie Grace Whitson's Keepsake Legacies series uses cherished keepsakes (a quilt, a charm string, and a small box of treasures) as a way of telling the story of three pioneer women. 

In book one of the series, Sarah Biddle's patchwork quilt tells the story of her life, but Sarah's niece, Lorna, doesn't realize the stories Aunt Sarah told her were true. 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01DV1SX9Y/ref=series_rw_dp_sw

When Quilts Speak

A footnote from history by Stephanie Grace Whitson

Do you have family quilts that remind you of past events? So many quilt stories disappear when quilts aren't labeled (and most weren't). But here are a few stories that ARE known--stories that take as beyond the textile itself and into the lives of the people involved in their making.

See the words Ladies Aid in the center of the quilt block on the right?

In 1893, the Ladies Aid Society of the Filley (Nebraska) Methodist Episcopal Church raised funds to support the church by having a contest. Members of the organization embroidered their names on the front. Folks who contributed ten cents got their names on the back and the woman who raised the most money got to keep the quilt. The winner had recently married and collected names (and contributions) on her wedding trip--which included a visit to the Chicago World's Fair. 

During the Civil War, women organized Sanitary Commission Fairs to raise money for the cause. The quilt on the left bears General Grant's signature. It was brought back to Nebraska from the fair held in St. Louis--which raised $550,000.

The Grand Island, Nebraska, GAR (Grand Army of the Republic) chapter made this flag fundraiser quilt about 1896.

You wouldn't necessarily expect a pioneer story to emerge from this elegant crazy quilt, but the maker painted flowers onto velvet and silk while homesteading a claim in western Nebraska in the 1890s. Inspired by the wildflowers growing on the prairie, she wrote, "the first summer I copied these flowers with oil paints on silk and velvet pieces sent me from home." She was able to hire the work down required to "prove up" ... and isn't that just another story that reminds us not to make assumptions about all those pioneer women! 

Do you own a quilt that tells a story from your family history?

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Stephanie Grace Whitson loves including references to quiltmaking in her historical fiction. Sarah's Patchwork, a story of an orphan train child, is told through the fabrics Sarah used in the crazy quilt she uses to tell her life story to a beloved niece. Learn more about Stephanie at www.stephaniewhitson.com. 

To order Sarah's Patchwork: https://www.amazon.com/Sarahs-Patchwork-Keepsake-Legacies-Book-ebook/dp/B01DV1SX9Y

 

Orphans, Trains, and Happy Endings

A footnote from history by Stephanie Grace Whitson

Our hearts break when confronted with the suffering of refugees. We want a solution for homelessness. We can be tempted to think it's a relatively new problem. It's difficult to believe that in 1848-49, an estimated ten thousand vagrant children roamed New York City. After the Civil War, Boston had an estimated 6,000 vagrant children, New York at least 30,000. 

Enter reformer Charles Loring Brace, a New York reformer who "resolved to make use of the endless demand for children's labor in the Western country." Brace had come to New York to complete seminary training. Horrified by the conditions of children on the streets, he resolved to help them. He founded the Children's Aid Society, resolving to raise funds and obtain the necessary legal permissions to relocate children. 

Moving children from homelessness to a place where they would have food, shelter, work, and the possibility of an education seemed a good that could be done for thousands of unfortunate children. Brace's system of "placing out" eventually became the model for many such programs. Together, these programs removed at least 200,000 children, men, and women, from the city to the country.

The vast undertaking required a complex organizational system.

Various kinds of agents were hired. Some agents' were charged with locating "congenial communities" and working with local committees to screen applicants offering places for children. Placing agents escorted children west. 

What if either side of the agreement was unhappy with an arrangement? The Children's Aid Society agreed to pay a child's fare back to New York if an employer was not satisfied. The society also reserved the right to remove a child if a new home proved unsatisfactory. Employer's promised to provide proper care and education. 

Surprisingly, many children who boarded "orphan trains" were not really orphans. Impoverished, desperate parents who could not care for children sometimes relinquished them to the Children's Aid Society. Those who took in children or found employment for placed-out adults were perceived as performing a Christian duty, and those who served as agents were often seen as serving in a home mission field. 

It doesn't take much imagination to realize such a system had the potential to provide wonderful homes for some children ... and horrible tragedy for others.

Can you imagine what it was like to be a child who had known only the streets of New York City or Boston ... and then to be taken off a train (after an exhausting ride) and to a home on a farm? Being expected to help with chores? Would you have been terrified of cows? What if your job was suddenly to milk one? 

How often in human history has a solution motivated by good will created unforeseen problems? And yet ... 

To learn more about the orphan trains, you might want to watch the PBS special on the subject. Learn more about it here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/orphan/

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 The moment I saw the child in this photograph, I knew I'd found the inspiration for Sarah Biddle, "my" orphan train character for Sarah's Patchwork. I love the "attitude" and the inner strength of character I think I see in her pose. 

Learn more about the novel based on this aspect of real American history here: 

https://www.amazon.com/Sarahs-Patchwork-Keepsake-Legacies-Book-ebook/dp/B01DV1SX9Y/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1470546966&sr=1-1&keywords=sarah%27s+patchwork