This satin string quilt was made by my paternal grandmother, Daisy Thompson Williams, circa 1970. The backing is solid red satin.
Forty years. That's the age of the quilt that this four-block square comes from. The quilt, which I have labeled as a Joseph's Coat of Many Colors" string design, was made for my Great Aunt Eunice, my grandmother's sister. Of course, there are many wonderful stories which belong to this item. Perhaps the most important is that I viewed the quilt in the year it was made, shortly after my grandmother finished it. I had been in her bedroom when she folded it and neatly placed it, along with at least one other, in the bottom drawer of her chest. "Joseph's Coat" she placed on top, probably because she was most proud of it, and my five-year-old eyes, impressed by the bright satin used in the quilt, asked what and whom the quilt was for. Beaming, my grandmother told me that these latest pieces of her art were for her younger sister.
It was because of that one day back in 1970 that, in 2010, twenty-nine years since the death of my grandmother and twenty-seven years since the death of her sister Eunice, that I finally have inherited Joseph's Coat. After Aunt Eunice passed, the quilt was stored in the attic of the home that she lived in with her daughter and son-in-law. I wonder why my cousin didn't use the quilt. I'll mull over that question fully another day. The most apparent answers are that for her generation quilts had gone out of style. This home art may also be associated with poverty and, more specifically, with the poorly heated wood shacks many African American migrants lived in before moving to the North. In any case, my cousin's choice not to use the quilt that was her mother's is the very reason why it is in pristine condition--despite having been stored in the attic.
My two sisters and I took a short journey from our own homes in neighboring states to accept our aging cousins' gift of Joseph's Coat and two other quilts, and it was my middle sister who actually found Joseph's Coat lying neatly folded in a cedar chest. She exited the attic and placed the quilt in my hands (either that or I snatched it from her I can't recall). I simply remember hugging the quilt as water began to form in my eyes. Enveloping myself in the cloud of smooth and oddly cool fabric, I breathed in deeply the strong scent of a smell I couldn't quite place and which my sister identified as cedar. Later, at home with the heirloom, I decided to air it out by placing it outside. This was nothing actually but an excuse for going to a place where I could be alone with it. I was pretty sure my husband and children didn't understand how important the quilt was to me. On the front porch, I sat across from it, which I had draped over a bench, and I stared, trying to understand how it could be that after so many years of waiting I finally had my grandmother's work in my possession. I could find no words at that moment for how I had reached this time. I could have thought of the struggles I had endured and, in some cases, was still enduring in order fully to feel the sense of unqualified happiness that the quilt brought me. But instead, I arrested time and just looked rather blankly at the quilt as though screeing. I joined it then, where I was supposed to join it, where I was forty years ago when I knew nothing of real worries, when days with my grandparents were sweetness and light. Only from that place could I accept the quilt.
From this place of bliss, the name Joseph's Coat of Many Colors floated to me, and I began to imagine that this particular quilt had always been meant for me. Neither of my sisters had asked for it; they seemed perfectly happy with the other two quilts, another string design made of scrap fabrics, and a diamond design created of hexagons turned on their sides. So as I sat on my porch entranced by this work, I wondered if I could live up to the implications of the inheritance. I thought of Joseph himself, whose brothers--unlike my sisters--were so jealous of his blessing that they sold him into slavery. Luckily, my own siblings didn't want any such awful fate for me. My middle sister's and my rivalry had long ago been replaced by the warmest relations. The day that she and my oldest sister left my home to return to their own, my middle sister almost cried. Her face, despite attempts to remain calm through our entire experience, finally betrayed her. She was returning to her home changed as I was.
Joseph, like many other biblical figures, had to go through a time of great difficulty and of exile from his homeland. Of course, his story ends well. He becomes favored by the Babylonian king because of his ability to interpret the ruler's dreams. One of the dreams foretells a coming famine, and because Joseph shares this information with the ruler, the ruler is able to avert starvation in his land. I am not one who has ever identified strongly with any particular biblical character, but it certainly has been the case that when it comes to family inheritance I have been more interested and attuned (sometimes obsessed) with the family's past. My keen interest in our family history is a large part of what motivates me to write. I sometimes think that my elders--if not also my ancestors--saw this interest in me early on. If my grandmother didn't know when she was living that her most prized quilt would end up in my hands, in the many years since she has traveled The Good Blue Road, I trust that she has come to know it. The perhaps greater challenge for me is the question of what I must come to know and the role that I can either choose or not choose to accept.
Here's how I see things at this point in time, after forty years of waiting: the quilt is just representative of my blessing. The real goal before me is not to remain in exile, estranged from the blessing or otherwise placing it on the back burner, but to move from this place of difficulty even when all hell is breaking loose to keep me bound--mired in someone else's family story--to the place intended for me.
