The Quilt That Helped the War Effort

This quilt was given to Pat Reynolds for safe-keeping by the family of Martha Overton. It has red crosses, like the American Red Cross, on a white background, hand stitched and hand-quilted and is in beautiful condition. One of the crosses has these words embroidered, “This quilt was made by the Priscilla Club in Dec. 1917. The Club was started in Sept. 1916. Worked for Red Cross, Aug. 1917.” It is thought that this kind of quilt was a fund-raiser, and people would pay to have their names stitched onto the quilt (cont.).



This is a short list taken from thirty-one crosses that have hundreds of names embroidered on them: Baber, Bishop, Coon, Corzatt, Crippin, Cummings, Deering, Ellison, Farley, Fry, Gildow, Hardin, Hastie, Huckleberry, Hull, Lewis, Marsh, McClintic, McKee, Mott, Owens, Patterson, Pegram, Prall, Randleman, Reed, Reese, Sanders, Seid, Shoemaker, Sperrow, Thomas, Utterson, Wright, Young. It is possible that Florence Hull, Helen Rothfus and Audra Mott were members of the Priscilla Club. Pat is very interested in learning more about the group. In a related story, the Red Cross was organized in Warren County in 1917 during World War I. In 1918 the name was changed to Warren County Chapter of the American Red Cross. National headquarters asked this chapter to contribute $9050.00 toward the national quota. A percentage of that money was kept for use by the local chapter. From HISTORY OF WARREN CO. compiled by Gerard Schultz and Don Berry, Indianola, 1953.