Quilt

by Vic Jameson

It has been a family treasure longer than anyone can remember with certainty, and the wonder is that the old quilt has survived at all.

Family lore is that Martha Yrena Hartman began collecting scraps of cloth for it sometime after she took her 8-year-old brother and ran away to Dallas to escape from their stepmother. That was sometime before she (Martha Yrena) met William Adrian Jameson, saddle maker, rancher, storekeeper, investor in dreams. Did I mention that most of the time he called her Molly? Although several members of the family moved in one direction or another, Elmer, the oldest, stayed put and was the most avid Texan of the family. He once bristled strongly when someone questioned his mother’s geographical origin, “Don’t you dare say that my little mother wasn’t born in Texas!”

Although family members increased and scattered (settling places included many parts of Texas, Georgia, Arkansas, Alaska, New Mexico) stewardship of the quilt has remained mostly in Texas and New Mexico. That is not to say that care of the old quilt has always been luxury class. At various times it traveled by wagon, packhorse, Model T Ford; wadded in suitcases, duffles, and trunks. On occasion the pioneers were attacked by Native Americans whose territories the whites were trying to take — fights over ownership that continue albeit in courthouses or law offices rather than with Winchester saddle guns or bows and arrows. And what of the quilt? Still handsome despite hard treatment and sometimes neglect, the “Texas Star” quilt is tucked away to be cherished by Molly’s great great grandchild.