1885 - 1900 Leadbeater Sisters' Crazy-patch Parlor Throw
date: label: date made
content: 1885-1900
name: label: maker
content: Leadbeater, Mary Grace
label: maker
content: Leadbeater, Lucy
label: maker
content: Leadbeater, Anna
notes: label: Description
content: Anna (Mrs. Henry C. Slaymaker) and her two sisters, Mary (Mrs. William Boothe) and Lucy (Mrs. Thomas Speiden) worked on this slumber throw top that was never completed. Anna’s needlework is also represented by two samplers, embroidered when she was 9 and 10, that are in the Textile Collection.
label: Description
content: Twenty blocks, 12 or 13 inches each, are pieced using silks, satins and velvets. Except for two blocks with simple embroidery, they are undecorated. The combination of geometric and crazy-patch piecing gives interest to this unfinished top.
label: Description
content: Anna was born on October 2, 1842, to John and Mary P. Stabler Leadbeater in Alexandria, Virginia. John, her father, was the owner of the Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary in Alexandria. Anna married Henry C. Slaymaker, a Confederate Civil War veteran, on November 6, 1866, and they had three children (Isabel, Henry C. Jr., and Frank).
label: Description
content: The donor, Mrs. Clarence Milton Yohn, included a note about Anna's grandfather, Lt. Henry C. Slaymaker. “[He] was only 16 when he served as a civilian informer in 1861 and 1862, carrying messages from Alexandria and Washington, D.C., quilted in his waistcoat and pretending hunting excursions in the woods in order to get to his cousin, Gen. Robert E. Lee. He was about to be hanged in 1862, when he escaped to join the Confederate Army under age.” After the Civil War, Henry Sr. established a dry goods business, but died at 36 of consumption on February 28, 1880. Anna died on February 15, 1906.
label: Description
content: Anna’s sister Mary was born in 1839 and married Capt. William Boothe (1818-1894). She died in 1914. Lucy, the third sister, was born about 1838 and married Thomas Speiden. The three sisters were from the family who founded the Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary Shop, which was operated by family members from 1796 to 1933, when it became a pharmacy museum. The buildings, which date to the early 1800s, have withstood four wars and a major city fire, and currently house the Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary Museum in Alexandria, Virginia.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Virginia, Alexandria
topic: label: Subject
content: Quilting
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Textiles
label: See more items in
content: Family & Social Life
label: See more items in
content: Domestic Furnishings
label: See more items in
content: Textiles
label: See more items in
content: Quilts
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Mrs. Clarence Milton Yohn
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: TE.T12613
label: accession number
content: 235642
label: catalog number
content: T12613
objectType: label: Object Name
content: quilt top
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: fabric, silk, satin, velvet, cotton (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: thread, silk, cotton (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 64 in x 52 in; 162 cm x 131 cm