A family quilt 75 years in making

It can be a surprise what family treasures lie within everyday miscellaneous items. 
Dani and Chad Klute of Hampton received such miscellaneous treasures when they had inherited a two story farmhouse that once belonged to Chad’s mother before he passed away.
While sorting through the items that were found within the house, Dani found a cedar chest that contained an unfinished quilt top.
“I was a purging mood,” Dani stated. “I almost gave it to the thrift store because I thought, ‘What are we going to do with it?’”
Instead of donating the quilt, however, she gave it to her quilter mother, Glenna Markham to see what she could with it, but today has no recollection of doing so.  
“She brought it to me and she said, ‘Look what I found in the cedar chest. Is there anything you can do with this, Mom?’” Markham said.
Markham began her quilting passion in 2007 when she passed by a quilt store that formerly operated on the south side of the square in Aurora.
“I have sewn since I was little but I’d never made a quilt before until 2007,” Markham explained. “There was this quilt hanging in the window that was snowflakes or snowmen. I went in and signed up for the class not knowing what I was getting into.”
When Markham received the quilt top, the fabric was crafted up the inner frame of the quilt. The pattern of the quilt was the old fashioned “monkey wrench” design. 
“It’s called piecing when somebody puts a quilt together,” Markham said while pointing to the inner framing.
The main challenge the quilt maker had was working with the fragile fabric sewn together in the 1940s. The fabric used in the quilt was the same as used to make shirts and dresses.
She said her goal was to complete the quilt top as close as she could to the original design.
“I went to the quilt shop in Fullerton where they had reproduction materials of the 30s and 40s,” Markham stated. “I took it over to Leanna Smith from Material Girl over in Grand Island and she quilted it for me.” 
The fabric Klute found in Fullerton was used to create the border and backing for the quilt. 
Speculating that it was either Chad’s mother or grandmother who had started working on the quilt, she gave it to Chad for his 60th birthday on Sept. 8 of this year.
Since then the family has been digging into Chad’s family history to find out who originally created the quilt and who it was intended for.
“We knew it had belonged in his family, but his mom died in 1985 when she was 44 and Chad was only 21,” Dani explained. “His maternal grandmother also passed away over 10 years ago, so we had no idea the history of the quilt top but just assumed one of them started it before Judie, Chad’s mother, got sick and died of lung cancer.” 
Not to long after Chad’s birthday, Dani got in contact with his aunt, Anita Wall, who lives in Hampton.
“On a hunch, I decided to call his aunt to see if she knew if his mother started it or if it was his grandmother,” she said.
The couple discovered from Wall that the quilt had been created by his great grandmother, Marie Benne.
Since Benne had only one child, Chad’s grandmother, “She had all the time in the world to do things,” Dani was told by Wall. 
“She said, ‘All five of us girls got a quilt from our grandmother,’” Dani recounted from what Wall told her.
Benne had also gifted hand made quilts to her granddaughters, Joyce Langley, who lives in Mobile, Ala., Mary Orth, who lives in Ogallala, and Maggie Palmer, who was living in Florida at the time of her passing 20 years ago.
While the quilts meant to be given to the women when they were grown up and married, Wall received her quilt when she was five years old.
Wall speculated that the quilt top was created between 1937 and 1949, but could have been started even earlier. Since reaching out to Wall, Dani was able to get in contact with Langley. 
“We don’t see each other very often anymore, but now we made a game plan to hopefully visit them in Mobile in April,” Dani stated.
They weren’t able to learn more about Benne or her quilts from Langely, but Dani said that the four-hour conversation they had helped reconnect them as a family.
“Even though I didn’t find out more information about the quilt, it’s connecting our family four generations later,” Dani commented. “All because my mom took the opportunity to keep the quilt top and make a beautiful gift for her son-in-law.”
Dani and Markham are hoping to create a tag for the quilt to document the name of its creator and the date it was completed.
After receiving the quilt, Markham became a member of the Nimble Thimbles Quilt Guild where she has made Quilts of Valor for honored veterans in Hamilton County.
“It’s a very humbling, neat thing to be a part of that,” Markham commented. 
Her most recent project was a Quilt of Valor for her grandson, Cavett Klute, who served in the United States Army for nearly five years before becoming a member of the National Guard.
The Klute family attended Aurora High School’s Veteran’s Day program on Friday, to help present Cavett with his Quilt of Valor.