For Louise Harris of Jameson family history is woven into the fabric of a counterpane blanket hanging on her dining room wall. It’s the story of the Clark family who moved from Indiana to Missouri in about 1856.
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Louise was not a blood relative of the Clarks, having married into the family, but she says, “I know quite a lot about them. I may know more than they know.”
The story of the hand-loomed coverlet spans four generations, covers three treks from Missouri to Nebraska, and takes up about 120 years. In the early 1860s, Mary Elizabeth (Bickle) Clark presented her three daughters Viola, Alice and Lydia, each with a counterpane coverlet as a gift.
“Mary was a strong-willed and resourceful woman,” says Louise Harris.” She carded the wool, spun the flax, dyed the wool and wove the three coverlets herself.”
Mary dyed Lydia’s coverlet blue with indigo. Alice’s coverlet was dyed with red berries. Viola’s coverlet was green, dyed with grape leaves.
“I can’t imagine how she wove this pattern,” said Louise. “When you reverse it, the pattern is different.”
Back in those days such coverlets were primarily meant to keep the small ones warm.
“In those days neighbors would get together for barn dances and other socials,” Louise says.”The little kids would get sleepy and they would lay a lot of them down on one bed. They needed a big enough quilt to cover them all at the same time, and that’s what the counterpane was used for.”
Mary and Jacob Clark’s three daughters were the youngest of eight children. Viola married Clinton Kelly; Alice married Abe Peters; and Lydia married Charlie Elliott. Together the three sisters and their children took off with their adventuresome husbands from Missouri to homestead in Southwest Nebraska. The three families arrived in Red Willow County, Neb., sometime before 1885.
The three families lived fairly close together, enduring grasshoppers, drought and prairie fires.
The Kelleys and Peters remained in Nebraska. The blue coverlet made the first return trip back to Missouri with Lydia and Charlie when they came back to Laredo in Grundy County in 1904.
When Lydia died in 1939, the blue coverlet was inherited by her daughter Mary. Again the counterpane returned to Nebraska where Mary had settled with her husband in McCook.
The blue coverlet is only half its original size. A cousin received the other half. Yes, the counterpane was cut right in two. Louise says it was a matter of compassion overruling practicality. The cousin had lost her mother (owner of the original green coverlet which had been lost). So they gave her half the blue one.
Louise doesn’t know what became of that other half. “I wrote to Viola’s great granddaughter. She was very gracious, but she said she had never seen any of her great grandmother’s possessions. She said if she ever came across it she’d let me know, and that’s been about 10 years ago.”
Mary passed the blue coverlet on to her son, an only child, Elmore Harris.
“They treated me like a daughter,” said Louise, who was Elmore’s wife. She said she felt honored and privileged to take care of the coverlet and has been doing so since 1950.
This year Louise moved from McCook, Neb., to live with her niece, Sue, and husband, James Brodt, in Jameson. And so the counterpane once again arrived in Missouri.
“The coverlet was made to keep you warm,” said Louise. “It’s been used through the years and it’s been washed, but it’s always been well taken care of.”