Ashley's Sack

[LoriAnn]

While doing a little research on era embroidery patterns, I found this article about a 9 year old girl whose story of being sold away from her mother is told in embroidered letters on a sack:

Slavery-era embroidery excites historians...

(If the USA Today link isn't cooperating, here's the Wiki page on it: Ashley's Sack )

"It is a cotton sack with a story so poignant it is drawing in followers from across the country.

Ashley is believed to be a 9-year-old slave girl who received the sack as a goodbye gift from her mother, Rose, in the mid 1800s, when Ashley was being sold away from the South Carolina planter who owned them. The sack's history was embroidered in 1921 by Ashley's granddaughter, Ruth Jones Middleton, a member of black society in Philadelphia."

USAToday

There are more articles on this, and I'll come back to add one or two (if some of you don't find and post them first )

 

[NH Civil War Gal]

Poignant and so sad all at the same time. I never used the word "poignant" hardly ever, until this year researching back stories on slaves, wounded - in body/soul, and everything in between with the Civil War.

What a treasure that is.

 

[LoriAnn]

Yes, I wasn't quite expecting to find this as I was cruising around the net. I was both amazed by the find and saddened by the story.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Dad used to " The Civil War was yesterday ". When it you think of it generationally, boy, it hits home- 1921, honest, wasn't that long ago. To think that we are looking at THE sack someone who was enslaved- put their tears into, it's nearly unfathomable.

Thanks very much for making this a thread. Women's experiences varied so much through the war, heck, through all our American history there's just no way to encompass them. Those with no voices were the most crushing. A sack, saying what could not be said. Makes me want to go back to bed.

 

[LoriAnn]

To think that we are looking at THE sack someone who was enslaved- put their tears into, it's nearly unfathomable.

And it was found at a flea market in Tennessee, back in 2007. (I was just in Springfield, TN not that long ago, wandering through an antique warehouse. Perhaps I should stop for flea markets as well.)

When time allows, here's a blog post by Mark Auslander at Southern Spaces, with details on Rose, Ashley, Ruth, and the sack itself: Slavery's Traces: In Search of Ashley's Sack

 

[Anna Elizabeth Henry]

What a bittersweet item. It's amazing that it's survived so long given the long, difficult rode Ashley no doubt had in her life. It does make me sad that the item turned up at flea market. Granted it's great that it ended up with someone who cared enough to preserve it, but unfortunate that it's still not with a family member. Thanks for sharing it with us @LoriAnn

 

[LoriAnn]

Granted it's great that it ended up with someone who cared enough to preserve it, but unfortunate that it's still not with a family member.

The woman who found it bought it for $20 and had considered offering it up on Ebay . But then she dreamt of a little girl named Ashley and had a change of heart.

I'd love to know how the family got separated from it. I always wonder about this when I see photo albums in antique stores. Entire albums lovingly put together, and they end up on a dusty shelf somewhere.

I always make it a point to pick them up and carefully look through the pages, acknowledging that these were people who mattered to someone.

 

[Anna Elizabeth Henry]

The woman who found it bought it for $20 and had considered offering it up on Ebay . But then she dreamt of a little girl named Ashley and had a change of heart.

I'd love to know how the family got separated from it. I always wonder about this when I see photo albums in antique stores. Entire albums lovingly put together, and they end up on a dusty shelf somewhere.

I always make it a point to pick them up and carefully look through the pages, acknowledging that these were people who mattered to someone.

Ack - Ebay Why do people always want to sell items like that on there?! That's not the best place for it to find a good home.

As to how things end up separated from family members, I do understand how it happens sometimes. The elderly lady who lived downstairs from me never married or had any children. She had an interesting treasure trove of family photos, old jewelry (from the 19th century) and some other antique items. She wasn't on speaking terms with her married sister over some long standing feud. When she passed away a few years back only myself and my mother attended her funeral despite us reaching out to her sister and nieces. Before her passing she had been kind enough to leave those special items to us. I did reach out to her family to see if they were interested in the family photos and jewelry, but they never responded - which makes me sad as they were pictures of their grandparents and great-grandparents. I still do have them in a box in the basement along with the jewelry should anyone change their mind. Had she not left them the items to our care, I imagine they would either have been discarded or sold to a thrift shop.

I always look at those albums and other personal trinkets in thrift shops and antique stores, too!

 

[LoriAnn]

Before her passing she had been kind enough to leave those special items to us.

She knew she was leaving items from her lifetime in good hands.

I always look at those albums and other personal trinkets in thrift shops and antique stores, too!

Can you imagine a whole flock of CWT members wandering through an antique warehouse? We'd have a good time.

 

[AshleyMel]

What a wonderful piece of history! I wanted to comment on this thread earlier but I had to rush off to my sewing day with the ladies.
Such a precious gift to find at a flea market of all places! I will be more attentive as I wander through the tables and peek at the wares!
As we have been talking of handmade items lately, it just strikes me more and more the importance of perpetuating the life style crafts that our mothers and grand mothers and great grand mothers deemed so important to bestow to us.
Thanks for highlighting this story!

 

[LoriAnn]

As we have been talking of handmade items lately, it just strikes me more and more the importance of perpetuating the life style crafts that our mothers and grand mothers and great grand mothers deemed so important to bestow to us.

Think of where your work with the veterans' quilts may end up someday, maybe 100 years from now.

I bet someone in the future will be looking at my embroidery and saying, "Well. She certainly put the "lazy" in the Lazy Daisy stitch!" (I will haunt her!)

 

[AshleyMel]

Think of where your work with the veterans' quilts may end up someday, maybe 100 years from now.

I bet someone in the future will be looking at my embroidery and saying, "Well. She certainly put the "lazy" in the Lazy Daisy stitch!" (I will haunt her!)

I say haunt away!!!

In my quilt clubs, the ladies are always talking about the importance of labeling your work. We have had trunk shows where designers and collectors have displayed their antique quilts and vintage items and sadly, there have been no identifying labels or tags and it can be very difficult to date pieces just based off fabric (some ladies horde for years) and patterns. I recently won a beautiful quilt in a raffle and while it does have a label identifying the designer, pattern and that it was machine quilted and appliqued, there is no completion date. I plan on adding a small label to add to it's history with the date and town I won the raffle.

This is only part of what makes "Ashley's Sack" so wonderful.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Boy, you guys are adding so, so much to Ashley's sack!! Even the fact Ebay was brought into the story, and Ann Elizabeth's lovely neighbor, draws an important thread. Thank you! It's like pulling teeth trying to convey why in blazes History itself is so important- each story IN History pinpoints why. neglecting one ( opinion ) neglects the whole thing. I don't know. Ashley's story is so important people listened. Thankfully.

I'll shush. Looking for a fly on the wall, can only find a bee.

 

[AshleyMel]

I was thinking on this thread over night (it's difficult not too, right?) while Hubby was snoozing away and while at sewing yesterday I was admiring a very old painting at my dear friend's house of two beautiful twin babies in a wagon and I commented on it. She told me it was done by her sister who had passed away and it was of their twin Uncles from a old photograph the family had and that the babies themselves had died before their second birthday due to illness. It doesn't seem to take much to make me cry these days and she was happy to relate the story of the painting and before you know it we were both in tearful hysterics, our sewing projects forgotten for the moment. I say all that to say this, my friend's story reminded me of Ashley's in the sense of having a awareness of family, history and legacy in spite of tragedy and heartache. How a simple item can become something of wonder and comfort and remembrance. As I know it has been said, our stories matter. History matters. Minnie, my friend, shared a part of hers with me. I told her she needed to write down her remembrances for her children and grands but she didn't think they'd be too interested. I told her I bet they would but if not, I sure would and she had given me a wonderful gift by telling me about them.

 

[LoriAnn]

I told her she needed to write down her remembrances for her children and grands but she didn't think they'd be too interested. I told her I bet they would but if not, I sure would.

Even if the younger generations expressed no interest now, a few will likely develop an interest in later years. I know I'd give anything to have my Gram back for a number of reasons, including the chance to ask so many questions I now have.

 

[AshleyMel]

Even if the younger generations expressed no interest now, a few will likely develop an interest in later years. I know I'd give anything to have my Gram back for a number of reasons, including the chance to ask so many questions I now have.

Exactly! I think about this when I see so much in history that has NOT been said or written down. Lots of questions, lots of wonderings. As humans we then tend to fill in the blanks. My husband sees so much of this in his experience with Biblical history and archeology. I told my daughter, one day, I'm going to do what I encourage others to do, I'll put pen to paper and write down my story too! Truth be told!

 

[LoriAnn]

I told my daughter, one day, I'm going to do what I encourage others to do, I'll put pen to paper and write down my story too! Truth be told!

If you do handwrite this, it will be extra special. I fear our beautiful handwriting will be completely gone some day.

I was not in the habit of signing my quilts, so there are quilts out there in various homes, made by me but unmarked. After my nieces and nephews and perhaps their children pass, subsequent generations will have no idea where the quilts came from.

I did sign ONE quilt, given to my in-laws. And the quilts I made for my parents will come back to me at some point ~ I shall sign those as well. Heck, I haven't even signed the ones in my house!

I wonder if any of my embroidery/quilting/knitting will ever end up in an antique warehouse.

 

[LoyaltyOfDogs]

Exactly! I think about this when I see so much in history that has NOT been said or written down. Lots of questions, lots of wonderings. As humans we then tend to fill in the blanks. My husband sees so much of this in his experience with Biblical history and archeology. I told my daughter, one day, I'm going to do what I encourage others to do, I'll put pen to paper and write down my story too! Truth be told!

Another gap in so many of our families' histories has to do with the unidentified photographs that probably all of us have. Like @LoriAnn, I often wonder about the people whose antique portraits I see at shops, auctions and flea markets. It's sad that they've been abandoned by their descendants, and I can easily imagine how that has happened over the years. With the passing of our parents, both my husband and I have become the custodians of their lifetime collections of photographs, including, in his case, several dating to the mid- late-19th century. Except for a few, we have no names to go with any of them, mainly because no one wrote identifying information on the backs of the photos. I don't say this to criticize; it's a time-consuming exercise to document portraits, let alone snapshots, and who thinks to do it anyway (other than my husband, who very carefully, in the early years of our marriage, actually wrote captions for all our photos.) It's human nature, I think, for people to unconsciously assume that the photos are important only to themselves, and since they know the individuals who are pictured, unnecessary to record names or dates. But it is necessary, and the older I get and the more I appreciate a sense of history, the more keenly I recognize that I'm contributing to this problem. Time for Mr. LoyaltyOfDogs and me to get busy making notes on our pictures.

 

[NH Civil War Gal]

I'm so fortunate in that 2 years before my father died (1992), I made a point of one night a week, for almost 15 months of going over "stuff" and we labeled his entire photo album (not all that big really but important to me). That time is still precious to me but I'm just glad we got the photos labeled by tackling it and other family history in short bits.