History Undercover
EAST BUTLER — Volunteers cleaning out a cupboard last spring at East Butler Presbyterian Church uncovered a long-forgotten bit of church history.
Church members Donna Christy and Lana Dero, both of East Butler, found an antique quilt neatly folded in an old paper bag.
The card pinned to it said the red and white quilt had been made in 1914 by members of the Ladies Aid group as a fundraiser. There were 800 names embroidered onto it at a cost of 10 cents apiece, according to the card.
The finished quilt was sold for $24, according to the card, but the Rev. Mary Kitchen, East Butler Presbyterian pastor, said the buyer must have donated it back.
“It was in an old paper bag tucked down behind Sunday school materials, things that we haven't moved around in a while,” Kitchen said.
“We were all there doing cleaning and I recognized my family's name,” Christy said. She saw the names of her father, grandfather, uncle and aunt under her maiden name of Marcus.
“It has 800 names. Back then, it was pretty much all who lived in East Butler,” said Christy, who said she had heard talk of the quilt among church members when she was a child but last spring was the first time she actually saw it.
“I can't remember if it was displayed before. None of us ever saw it,” she said.
“It's a mystery how it got there,” said Kitchen of the discovery. “We were all kind of mystified by it,” she added. “We had found this treasure we didn't know was there. I never saw it before.”
Kitchen has been pastor for 21 years for the 110-member congregation.
“I asked our oldest member, Helen Hay who's 89, and she hadn't heard of it,” Kitchen said.
To keep it from disappearing again, church members Bill Whitmer of East Butler and Richard “Buster” Christy of Herman made a glass-fronted frame.
Whitmer said the church was looking into buying a frame when “I figured I could do it.”
“It took us two or three days to make the frame about a month after we found it,” Richard Christy, Donna's nephew, said.
The quilt is held up between the back of the frame and a plate of glass.“There are no nails or tacks in the quilt itself,” Richard Christy said.Speaking of the quilt, he said, “I bet it took them a long time to do that. There aren't too many people around that know how to sew.”“We have a couple young people writing all the names down in a list. We're going to alphabetize them and hand them out to the congregation to see if any of their relatives are on there,” Kitchen said.The church dedicated the quilt during a ceremony and dinner preceding the annual congregational meeting Sunday.Noting the quilt will be 100 years old in 2014, Kitchen said, “It's done pretty good for being 100 years old. Maybe it's because it hasn't been exposed to the light.”The quilt is on display on the wall of the social hall.“It's going to stay there permanently I think,” Kitchen said. “It's honoring the names on the quilt and those who made it.”When asked if she thought there were any more hidden treasures in the church, Kitchen said it's not likely.“We pretty well cleaned up everything. I don't think we have any more mysteries lurking anywhere,” she said.
