THE 1929 KELSEY QUILTERS

A debut author blends genealogy and microhistory in this chronical of a Southern Mormon colony.

“What is a quilt?” Hamberlin asks in the book’s opening lines, suggesting that the object in question is more than “just pieces of fabric stitched together to keep us warm.” Historically produced via communal participation, quilts often mirror “life itself” and reflect the values and shared memories of their creators, per the author. Such a quilt, accompanied by 22 additional unsewn blocks, was discovered by the author’s family in the estate of her husband’s aunt in 2018. In tracing the mysterious origins of the quilt—both sewn and unsewn blocks featured the same eight-point star pattern, but with a different name embroidered on each—the narrative puts together lost pieces of both Hamberlin’s extended family history and that of an entire Southern community of families belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The quilt, as the author learned, was made by a tight-knit group of women who lived in the Mormon community of Kelsey, Texas. While now a ghost town, at the turn of the 20th century Kelsey served as a haven for Mormon converts from the religiously oppressive South. (Even after the church banned polygamy, which was used by its opponents as justification for their persecution, its members continued to be met with hostility.) Exploring the lives of the women who worked on the quilt in 1929, this work uncovers a rich history of Kelsey’s town life, from its public school staffed by Mormon missionaries to its stores, farms, and mills built by the faithful. The text is at times hagiographic, written by a believer in the church’s teachings (the study of Kelsey, Hamberlin notes, “has strengthened [her] testimony of [her] Savior and the Atonement”), which may not resonate with those from different faith traditions. The study nevertheless draws on an impressive array of primary sources—from family oral histories to archival materials—to paint a vibrant portrait of life in Kelsey from the perspective of its women. Supplemented by a wealth of photographs, this is an accessible, engaging local history.

A well-researched and illuminating look at a bygone Southern Mormon township.