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Mary B's avatar

"Did he lie there for days

Before someone came around?

Was it a childhood comfort

Or an old family heirloom . . . "

So evocative, Sue! Treasures such as the quilt may have so many stories in their making and in their using. Loved this post.

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Sue Cauhape's avatar

Thank you, Mary. True, those old heirlooms of our hold stories we can only guess at, yet there may be people who can shed some light, albeit fragmented bits of memory and their limited perspective. An object like this quilt only had the information the museum docent could tell. Who knows how true it was. There was, in fact, a tiny wooden shack just off the side of the main highway a few miles from where I lived. I always wondered about it, sitting there alone without any apparent relation to what was around it. I wondered if the quilt came from that little cabin. I wonder if it's still there?

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Mary B's avatar

. . . . and I wonder if one could venture in, with permission or notification to someone. It would be so neat to see the inside and wonder about the stories that happened there, who loved it, who left it.

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Tabby Ivy's avatar

quilts carry many stories dont' they? lovely poem, thank you, sue.

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Fran Gardner's avatar

That’s a crazy quilt. I wonder if the coins were sewn into the cornes to help it hang straight on a bed. Seems like it’s in good condition.

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Sue Cauhape's avatar

That's a random photo off the internet, but the quilt I saw in the show was much like it. Coins in the corners would help with hanging it straight, but I wonder if an old trapper or miner would care about that.

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Switter’s World's avatar

Thanks God the wood rats didn’t find it first!

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Sue Cauhape's avatar

How true that is. Holy merde!

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Sharron Bassano's avatar

Such a sweet little mystery here, with a lovely crazy-quilt photo. Don't you just love that feather-stitching? It would be a fine flash-fiction story prompt, Sue.

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Sue Cauhape's avatar

Be my guest in writing a story. Share it with your writerly friends. I posted it as it was written years ago, but I was also thinking that maybe I should have written it out at prose. There's no rhyme, not even an attempt there. It was one of those relics of another era in my life.

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Sharron Bassano's avatar

I was just thinking it was a great story line for a fictional piece.

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Sue Cauhape's avatar

Thank you, Sharron. I'll let it ruminate for awhile.

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