The “Summer Winds” quilt block is located at the Pendleton Branch Library of the Anderson County Library System, 650 South Mechanic, Pendleton, SC. “Summer Winds” is a quilt block sponsored by Greeta G. Peden who has made the cloth quilt pattern numerous times as gifts for family and friends. She keeps using this creative block because of the different ways it is perceived. Some see fish, some see flowers, while others just notice the geometry involved. She loves it because she sees something different every time she makes it. Barbara Brackman’s “Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns” attributes the block to Nancy Page, a syndicated column written by Florence LaGanke for mail order patterns that ran in numerous periodicals c.a. 1925 to 1940.
Peden currently resides in Pendleton, SC, and has a truly unique relationship with the Pendleton Public Library itself. She has been meeting on Mondays and Thursdays with her Sit and Sew Group of fellow quilters for several years there. Peden learned to sew on a machine in her home economics class taught by Sister Antonio Marie in the 1950s. She didn’t begin quilting until age 67 and is a self-proclaimed “late” bloomer.
Pendleton’s first library was founded in 1811 as the Pendleton Circulating Library. Its building and collection were incorporated into the Pendleton Male Academy in 1825. The Academy was located on Queen Street, where the Anderson County School District Four offices are today.
In 1860, a Guard House was erected on Pendleton’s Village Green on the site of the former jail house. In 1911, a one-story annex was added. In 1916, Miss Sallie Trescott established a public library on the ground level. Upstairs housed the town’s police department. Trescott served as librarian until her death in 1944. Her personal book collection was transferred to the Clemson College Library.
The small library continued to serve Pendleton and residents in Pickens, Oconee and Anderson counties, with Helen George serving as librarian for over 22 years. In 1978, the Anderson County Library System built a 1,500 square foot library on Micasa Drive. This had remained the branch library’s site until construction of the new 12,000 sq. ft. building at 650 South Mechanic Street.
The new library is able to house 75,000 volumes and other materials. There’s expanded space for up to 30 computers, tutoring areas, and a 75-seat meeting room. The building was designed by the Greenville architectural firm of Craig, Gaulden and Davis, which designed the Anderson County Library System’s Main Library. Estimated cost of construction was $3 million.
The property on which the new Pendleton Branch Library stands was the site of a private residence as early as the 1830’s. In 1860, John Baylis Earle Sloan and his wife, Mollie Seaborne Sloan, established a home that became known as Tanglewood. The columns and ruins seen today are all that remain of the site, which was first destroyed by fire in 1908. It was a Piedmont plantation-style house, resting on tall piers and having large rooms.
The family re-built the home as a classical colonial revival mansion in 1910, reusing the columns in the new portico. Tanglewood stayed in the Sloan family for many years, until it was sold in the 1950’s to EB (Buckley) Hancock, who hoped it or the property could be used for a town library. The building again burned to the ground in 1970, though, leaving only the columns and chimneys and the property was eventually sold to John and Suzanne Morse.
In 2004, funds were allocated by Anderson County Council for the construction of a new Pendleton branch library of the Anderson County Library System. The Tanglewood property was purchased after negotiations with the Morses.
Groundbreaking for the library took place on Dec. 17, 2004. The grand opening was held January 14, 2007.
Westminster, SC, Adds to Upstate Heritage Quilt Trail
The old family home of Kenneth and Lynda King on Toccoa Highway is the display site for a “Butterfly” quilt block made originally by his mother, Marie Hardy King (1926 – 2010), the daughter of Tom and Myrtie Hardy. Marie was married to Vinton King and they had three children – Dorothy K. Dyar, Kenneth V. King, and David L. King; six grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. In addition to taking care of a family, King worked at TGY until she retired.
Growing up in Oconee County, it was King’s mother and grandmother who taught her how to quilt. She also loved to work in her garden, raising her favorite flowers, roses, and enjoyed putting up all the produce that she grew, feeding her family wonderful meals.
King created the “Butterfly” quilt pattern, making one for each of her children and grandchildren. She also helped her granddaughter make a “Dutch Doll” quilt. She was a member of Hopewell United Methodist Church.
Tamassee-Salem Middle High School Adds Third Quilt Panel to Quilt Trail
Tamassee-Salem Middle High School has added a third quilt panel to the Upstate Heritage Quilt Trail. The quilt, called “Grandmother’s Choice”, was chosen by the faculty and staff to honor one of their students, Alayna Cobb as well as staff member James Poland for their bravery and perseverance in the midst of medical struggles. Cobb was diagnosed with cancer in November 2012, and Poland who had completed treatments for cancer was a real inspiration to her and to the students at Tamassee-Salem Middle High School (TSMHS).
Alayna Cobb (c) with her parents
It was Cobb’s grandmother, Ruth Porter of Salem, SC, who with her sister Joyce Poore, made quilts for their six siblings as Christmas gifts. Porter quilted off and on for many years but she purchased this original quilt from the Tamassee DAR Thrift Store and then gave it to Cobb’s family. Since they don’t know the official name of the quilt pattern, they chose the name “Grandmother’s Choice”. As A Cobb told us, “I have always been a sentimental person. However, since my cancer diagnosis, I hold even little things sentimental. Before I completed my chemo treatments, I had some photos taken of me with my brother and cousins with Nana’s quilt. This quilt is very special to me.”
Marianne Jackson, the art teacher at TSMHS, used her Artist in Residence funds to sponsor this addition to the trail. As she told us, “Alayna was in the 7th grade when this quilt was chosen to be on the trail. She took the lead in choosing colors and working with her fellow students to replicate the design perfectly. She missed the first half of the 2013-14 school year due to her treatments, but when she returned, it was as if she’d never missed a day. She was one of the most hardworking and dedicated art students, putting her heart and soul into her work – something not all students do.
Cobb has been through a trauma most children could never dream of, but art helped her get through. She told me that if her wish for the Make A Wish Foundation was chosen, it would be to have an art studio built in her yard with all the fixings, materials and tools she would need to create, design and make art however she wished. “I have loved having Alayna as my student this year and look forward to having her in my classes in the years to come. It has been an honor to be a part of the Upstate Heritage Quilt Trail and to watch my 7th and 8th graders participate to create a beautiful piece of history.”
This pattern is known as a patchwork, joining four squares of material to form a larger square. In its simplest form, the block is constructed for four plain squares of fabric. The four patch lends itself easily to endless variation because each of the squares may also be made up of numerous smaller pieces pieced together. “Grandmother Choice” is a fine example of a pattern variation.
Mountain Rest Baptist Church Adds to the Upstate Heritage Quilt Trail
Mountain Rest Baptist Church is the site of a new addition to the Upstate Heritage Quilt Trail. The Church activities building, located at 9915 Highlands Highway, Mountain Rest, SC, will soon bear a quilt block called “Bible Blocks”. The original quilt was made by Myrtle Childers of Heath Springs, Lancaster County, SC, for Pastor Randy Koon and his wife, Suzanne, in 1994. She was a member of Pleasant Hill Baptist Church which he pastored at that time.
Childers was a self-taught quilter. She was 73, a widow with two sons and a retired nurse when she made the quilt as a love gift for the Koons. The pattern was chosen from “Biblical Blocks: Inspired Designs for Quilters” by Rosemary Makhan, because each element in the quilt has a Bible theme. Childers was nearly blind and had to sew the quilt using a large magnifying glass. The quilt was entirely hand stitched in squares on large embroidery hoops and pieced together over a period of three months. She traveled to a cloth store in Charlotte, NC, to find cloth that matched the picture in the pattern book she used to make the quilt.
Reverend Koon told us, “It is one of our most prized possessions and is kept on an antique sleigh bed in our guestroom which was also a gift from Mrs. Childers.” He has pastored four churches in North Carolina and South Carolina and became the pastor of Mountain Rest Baptist Church in September of 2002. He has two children – a son, Daniel, who is a pastor in Murfreesboro, TN, and a daughter, Elizabeth Sturkie, who is a pastor’s wife in Donalds, SC. The Koons have six grandchildren.
The quilt block is being sponsored by the SASSY Ladies Mission organization of Mountain Rest Baptist Church. The church had its early beginnings as the Double Springs Union Church and meetings were held in an old school building. Ten acres of land were given in the cause of religion for the consideration of $3. Although the land was given in 1858, it was not recorded until 1868. Originally, the church was a union of Methodists and Baptists with itinerant preachers conducting the services, alternating the material used for Sunday school between the two denominational publishing houses. In 1942, the membership nearly doubled from 16 members to 30 members with 12 baptisms and two additions by letter.
The Deacons, with support from the membership, realized the need for a separate place of worship that they might assemble in complete freedom according to the dictates of their conscience. The Baptists appointed a committee to build a separate place of worship, and a building plot was donated on the same highway a short distance away on Chattooga Ridge Road in August 1947. Most of the materials and work to build the church were donated by the members. The church was completed and dedicated on May 27, 1951. It was renamed the Mountain Rest Baptist Church in 1975 in order to tie the church more closely to the community it serves.
The Church relocated to its present site on Highlands Highway in1982, and completed their activities building in 2010. The old Union Church continues to operate as Double Springs Methodist Church.
For more information and pictures, click on (www.uhqt.org) or e-mail to (info@uhqt.org).