Grandmama Keaton's Swastika Quilt

Grandpapa and Grandmama Keaton,

My mother-in-law, Martha Mary Luton Lingard's mother Gladys Urso Keaton and infant sister died of pneumonia when Martha was 3 years old. She and her brother Earl were raised by their grandmother, Martha Mary (Mattie) Keaton, who, in the best southern tradition, was called Grandmama. I am often reminded, when Martha does or says something that is extremely old fashioned, that she was raised by someone who was born around the time of the Civil War.

Grandmama Keaton was an intelligent, frugal, stoic woman from  Elizabeth City, North Carolina. Her ancestors held land leases from King George that is still farmed by her descendants today. She was almost 60 years old when Martha and her brother Earl came to live with her in the late 1920s.

Around 1940 Grandmama Keaton frugally pieced 80 red, white and blue quilt blocks to make a quilt called The Spirit of St. Louis.  There are 3 different blue fabrics, several shades of muslin and the some of muslin fabric has been sewn together to make pieces big enough for the blocks.  Then the United States entered World War II. Grandmama had two grandsons in a army tank division in Germany. All she could see in the blocks was the red German Swastika, and she couldn't bring herself to finish the quilt.  She put the blocks away and never got them out again,   

Note the red swastika and  the seamed muslin piece on the top left.. 

A few years ago Martha showed me the blocks and asked me what to do with them.  I asked her if I could finish the quilt. I wanted to preserve the wonderful family treasure that Grandmama Keaton began.  Instead of swastikas I see loyalty, love and patriotism. As I stitched, I traced the seamed muslin patches with my finger and hoped to someday meet the woman who so frugally pieced and then put away her quilt blocks.  Her legacy lives on in her granddaughter and most importantly to me, her great grandson John.