Quilt Historian

Meet Jeananne Wright, a certified quilt appraiser, quilt historian, and avid collector of quilts and other vintage textiles. She was the speaker at our local Quilt Guild meeting, bringing suitcases full of quilts collected from all over the United States since 1968. Her collection numbers over 600 quilts (she did not bring them all with her), with the oldest dating from about 1820. One of her quilts was owned by a family in the Confederate states, who buried a treasured quilt in a wooden box to save it from plunder or destruction in advance of an impending Union invasion. When it was dug up, it had some rodent damage and seeping water had caused some colors to run, but it is one of her favorites.
She spoke with passion about collecting "ugly" quilts made in the 1940's to 1960's, an era in which quilts lost popularity and were associated with both poverty and "country folks." Her hour long lecture flew by, and afterward she graciously consented to a photograph next to a couple stacks of her quilts.