Threads of the Past: Stories of Pioneer Women and Their Quilts

Inspired by the author's immigrant ancestors, this is an intimate account of seven unforgettable women surviving extraordinary challenges and hardships in their new homes in America. These brave pioneer women express their dreams and losses and their joys and heartbreaks in the form of letters, diaries and other writings based on extensive genealogy research, documented facts and historical events. Spanning a time period from 1857 to 1939, their immigration and life stories are at the same time heartbreaking and heartwarming.

Sophia's family faces the dangers of the raw frontier of Minnesota, and they must flee for their very lives during the Sioux Uprising of 1862. Her sons later serve in the Civil War with tragic consequences. Her daughter Louisa tells a coming-of-age story and makes a surprising marriage, but struggles to keep her faith alive amidst terrible losses. Henrietta suffers the hardships of homesteading and living in a sod house to ensure that her three sons will never go hungry. Albertina goes kicking and screaming from a good life in Germany to a lonely life on the open prairies, with her family unfortunately arriving in Minnesota at the same time as the grasshopper plagues.

Faced with a life of shame in Bohemia, Magdalena risks an arranged marriage to a man in America. She loves having child after child, but is devastated by the deaths of many of them. Carolina dutifully follows her husband's dream and raises her family in a tiny log cabin on the harsh frontier. She feels blessed to have not lost any of her ten children, but tragedies strike later in life. Eliza, with a strong independent personality and known as a "hard woman", details her family's immigration from Germany to Minnesota, their daily lives, and the hardships of the Great Depression.

The history and evolution of quilting in America from pre-Civil War times through the 1930s is intertwined throughout these stories, with special quilts representing the patterns and fabrics from each era. Threads of the Past is beautifully illustrated with over one hundred wonderful vintage photos and ephemera. The life stories of these courageous women are at the same time harrowing and hopeful, heartbreaking and uplifting, but always grounded in faith and love of family.