The ‘Courting Quilt’

(Object ID 1958.1161.001)

The chill in the air has settled in, and fall now has the questionable job of warding off winter long enough for Anoka County residents to enjoy a bonfire or two. As you pull out the quilts from their summer resting places, what heritage stories will you snuggle beneath?

At the Anoka County Historical Society, our extensive quilt collection spans many years and has a variety of stories threaded into, quite literally, the fabric of our community. The Bethlehem Star Quilt, or Courting Quilt, stands as a magnificent example of not only incredible piecing, but also a courting tradition long left to history.

Catherine Grimshaw began the quilt in the 1840s as a young Pennsylvanian woman we can infer had considerable talent in handiwork. The type of star pattern she created dates the item to about 1830 and may also be known as the rising sun, lone star (for the new lands called Texas), starburst and sunburst. The complicated pattern of diamond shapes, each cut with a template to ensure accuracy, has eight separate diamonds that meet at the points to form the center; if the pieces aren’t cut and put together perfectly, the center will bulge up in an unsightly hump. There are hundreds of diamond pieces in each of the small stars, and thousands needed to complete the entire quilt.

While cutting each of those 3,440 diamonds may seem like an arduous task, Catherine most certainly enjoyed the time spent: she had a helper named John Murray whose intentions included marriage. Together they would sit on the porch of a rustic cabin, talking and snipping quilt pieces, planning the quilt design, colors and even the fabric selection itself. The efforts paid off in short order, and Catherine married John in 1843.

During their first year of marriage, they sewed the quilt together by hand. The huge star in the center is set into the quilt top, whereas the sunburst stars are pieced and appliquéd onto the corners of the top. In 1857, Catherine and John entered their quilt in the Minnesota Territorial Fair, bringing home a first prize. They entered it again the following year, but this time at the first Minnesota State Fair (Minnesota became a state in May of 1858). Again, it won first prize. And again in 1859.

For the next 100 years, the quilt had an unrecorded life of its own. What we do know is that by 1857, Catherine and John had four children and had moved to Minneapolis, where John continued to work as an attorney. Their daughter, Ellen, or Ella, as she was sometimes called, likely inherited the quilt from her parents. In 1883, Ella married William Streetly of St. Francis. William came to Anoka County in 1870 and worked with his brother, Charles. The Streetly brothers ran the store in St. Francis for many years. William and Ella had two sons, Charles and Robert. The boys grew up in St. Francis, and the quilt made by Ella’s parents remained in the family. Charles went to North Dakota; Robert stayed in St. Francis and married Mina Steinmetz.

Mina displayed the quilt at the historical booth during the Anoka County Fair about 1958 and later donated it to the Anoka County Historical Society to preserve the love story.

Rebecca Ebnet-Mavencamp is the executive director of the Anoka County Historical Society.