Quilt No.180MP - Molly Palmer

Letter from Molly Palmer 1995:
"I was interested in your article in 'Country Style' in August number, not because I have an antique quilt, but because of an interest in and my love for a very old one which was brought to this country last century but has now disappeared.
My paternal grandmother [Matilda Anne May] was born in Cape Breton island, Canada, in 1830. In 1852 she married an Irish soldier who had come to the garrison city of Halifax, Nova Scotia, and later she left Nova Scotia with him & his regiment & went to England from where she left for the Crimean War with him. At the Crimea she was attached to the Light Brigade with Florence Nightingale & the Colonel's wife as nurses, so was involved in the Charge of the Light Brigade.
Later they came to Australia to the Swan River settlement in charge of convicts [Pensioner Guards].
All this history is just background to a patchwork quilt which my grandmother brought with her from Nova Scotia. I loved this quilt as a child, and often sat on it on her bed as she told me of her life.
At this point in time my grandmother was over 80 years and the quilt had grown very thin. In places one could see the lining through t he worn patches.
Even though I am now 84 yrs myself, I still remember & love the image of that quilt.
The crowning part of this story is that in 1982 I went to Nova Scotia, a very beautiful place & a relation of my family made me a quilt of patchwork, in the Log Cabin pattern, which I now treasure very dearly, for it has taken unto itself all the charm & delight that my grandmother's old quilt held for me. I intend to sleep under it until I die. �"