The Farmer's Wife Pony Club Sampler Quilt: Letters From the Lucky Pony Winners of 1915 and 90 Blocks That Tell Their Stories
The Farmer's Wife Pony Club Sampler Quilt: Letters from the Lucky Pony Winners of 1915 and 90 Blocks that Tell Their Stories by Laurie Aaron Hird For those who like a little history with their quilting - and I'm one of them - this is the book for you. I'll let the author tell the story. In 1907, Edward A. Webb, the publisher of The Farmer's Wife magazine, decided to appoint his India-born, missionary-trained sister to the position of editor. One of Ella S. Webb's first decisions was to begin a contest that would prove to be the magazine's most famous and successful. Miss Webb's plan was to hire young children to sell subscriptions to their magazine. In exchange for the children's efforts, they received prizes, such as bicycles, talking machines, cameras, and rifles. It can only be supposed, however, that most of the children were working for the grand prize, a Shetland pony. In the early years of their pony-club contest, the company had a credibility problem. While trying to obtain subscriptions, the children were often told that the contest was not genuine - that they would never receive the much-hoped-for Shetland pony. To prove the contest's authenticity, the editors asked the children to send in photographs of themselves with their ponies. Over one hundred children sent thank you letters with their photographs. The Farmer's Wife Pony Club ended twelve years later in 1918, but not before they had given away over 500 ponies. Let me repeat that last part, "...not before they had given away over 500 ponies." Not pictures of ponies. Not stuffed-animal ponies. Not toy ponies. They gave away flesh-and-blood, snorting, pooping, tail-swishing, gotta-be-feed-and-groomed-and-cared-for actual ponies. Does that wow you or what? [I visualize kids living in upper-floor apartments in New York City and mothers explaining over and over again why it would not be a good idea for them to enter the contest.] The author of this book, Laurie Aaron Hird, owns one of the most complete collections of The Farmer's Wife. She selected some children's letters from the magazine, chose quilt blocks to represent the letters, and assembled them into a charming sampler quilt. [The book also includes a CD which contains templates, line diagrams, foundation patterns, and rotary cutting measurements to make the blocks...] The blocks range from the simple to the complex, although I believe most could be made by those with basic quilting skills. I usually don't like quilt books where the author connects events with blocks he/she has chosen to represent that event; often the connections seem tenuous at best. But most of Hird's choices seem appropriate. Sometimes the block names are the same as the pony's or the child's, and sometimes they relate to a location (such as the name of the pony's new home). Usually though, the author picked blocks which relate to something the child wrote in his or her letter. For example, Wuzzy the pony's block is called Floral Bouquet because he liked to bite blossoms off mother's flowers, and Bruce's block is called Star of Hope because both the winner of the pony and her brother had health issues. My only quibble with this book - and I admit, it's more than a little unfair - is that Hird does not provide her readers with the end of any story. I can't help but think that in some cases those ponies significantly changed the lives of some of the recipients and their families, and it would make interesting reading to know who and how and why. I acknowledge that it would take a lot of digging to uncover any of those endings, and providing a historical record was not one of the goals of this volume. Although the author is presenting history book. It's a quilt book. It's also a delightful slice of Americana. I highly recommend it. --Mary Boland