Pride In Our Heritage Quilt Show III - People's Choice Award Winner

Discover Giles County Historical Society article from the Virginian Leader, September 16, 2009

Visitors to Giles County Historical Society’s and Giles Arts Council’s Pride In Our Heritage Quilt Show III on September 5 and 6 were asked to vote for their favorite quilt from among the contemporary quilts on display. The winner of the People’s Choice Award, a paper foundation pattern designed and donated by Missy Barnhart called Roses in the Sunshine and the fabric to complete the project donated by Ella Page and Teresa Adams of Quilt Essentials in Peterstown, WV, was Tammy Muchler of Pearisburg.

Tammy’s quilt is called “Timeless Treasure” and was made for her 11-year-old son Grant. The quilt has 140 blocks with 22 pieces in each block making a total of 3080 pieces, hand-quilted in 5 different colors. In Tammy’s words: “I wanted to make a traditional quilt that had a bit of quirkiness to it. If you look closely, you will see a variety of ‘hidden’ things. Look for the money – dollars and pennies, cowboy hats, boots, chicken and eggs, turtles, feathers, ropes, millennium fabric…To offset the squares, I hand-quilted circles in variegated silk thread. I chose to do a thick thread so the circles would stand out event more.

“We had a lot of fun making this quilt. I am so proud of my son and so very glad that I got to make him a quilt he loves. He not only willingly went to quilt shops and shows to pick out almost every piece of fabric, but he also helped me machine piece it and hand quilt it.”

Stories like Tammy’s make each quilt a personal and unique experience for the quilter. Quilters were encouraged to share the stories of their quilts so that visitors could better appreciate the work and love of needlework that went into each piece displayed. Speaker Paula Golden, who presented “Quilts of Virginia” on Saturday, emphasized the importance of including these stories with each quilt so that future owners will know the quilt maker and history.

If you missed this year’s show, be sure to join the Giles County Historical Society and the Giles Arts Council next fall for Pride In Our Heritage Quilt Show IV!

Pete Ballard Speaks at Quarterly Meeting

Discover Giles County Historical Society article from the Virginian Leader, September 9, 2009

Arthur J. “Pete” Ballard was the speaker at Giles County Historical Society’s Quarterly Meeting on Sunday, September 13th. A native of West Virginia, Ballard has had a fascinating career in the arts and traveled extensively including stays in Saudi Arabia, Viet Nam, and China where he taught English as a second language. He later taught at the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston Salem, North Carolina. While in Winston-Salem, he was asked to curate and conserve the costume collection of the Reynolda House Museum, former home of the R. J. Reynolds family. Ballard’s expertise in museum costume curation and conservation came from his work with the costume collections of the Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina, the Museum of American Art in Winston Salem, and many other museums in the southeast as well as his experiences working with the late Stella Blum, curator of the costume institute for the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The topic of Ballard’s presentation to the Historical Society came from his period of museum work in North Carolina. He showed slides and discussed the costume restoration of a wedding gown that survived the Johnstown Flood of 1889. The Pennsylvania flood caused by a dam burst killed 2,209 people and flattened the town. What was left, including the wedding gown, was covered in mud. The gown provides a fascinating example of the loving and painstaking work required to restore and intricate costume and its fragile fabric. Ballard also showed slides of other costumes that he worked with over the years.

During his career in the museum profession, Ballard amassed quite a collection of leftover fabric scraps from completed conservation projects. The scraps became the inspiration for the next phase of Ballard’s career of making fashion dolls that are extensively researched, authentic examples of period fashions from the 18th century through the early 20th century. The dolls have been donated to museums across the United States including the Giles County Historical Society where they populate the Andrew Johnston House. At the conclusion of his presentation, Ballard showed slides of some of the over 200 fashion dolls he has created.

Visit the Andrew Johnston House to see our collection of fashion dolls created by Pete Ballard, a true artist and recent recipient of the Arts and Historical Letters Award from the West Virginia History and Archives Commission. He is shown with the Martha Washington doll he donated to the Giles County Historical Society in 2007.

School Days

Discover Giles County Historical Society article from the Virginian Leader, September 2, 2009:

The first day of school brings back memories for many people of their own school days: the promise of a new school year and time with friends, one-room school houses with pot-bellied stoves, strictly disciplined teachers, walking several miles to school (uphill both ways!), pigtails in inkwells, ringing the school bell, Friday night football games, long curvy bouncy bus rides, clouds of chalk dust, and the smell of new textbooks. For many in Giles County, the memory is of school buildings long gone or now being used for other things. Before the days of school consolidation, there were schools in each community.

In the early days, before buses and automobiles became the norm, most people walked to their local school, often several miles from their home. A single teacher in a one-room school house taught all grades, often in a building with a pot-bellied stove for heat and no indoor plumbing. Children wrote their lessons on slates and strict discipline was maintained.

The bigger towns like Pearisburg, Narrows, Pembroke, Eggleston, Newport, and Rich Creek had many small schools and later became the location of the larger elementary and high schools in the county. As transportation became easier, many of the one-room schools closed, but smaller, more remote, communities like Penvir, Kimballton, White Gate, and Bane still had their own schools. The schools often were one of the centers of their communities with residents cheering their hometown sports teams and attending pageants and graduations.

As people became more mobile and educational demands grew, the smaller schools were gradually closed and the children bussed to larger schools in larger towns. Today, Giles County has just 5 public schools creating memories for a new generation of students. Look closely though as you travel through the County and you will see that many of the old schools still exist and are being reused, often maintaining their status as a center of the community and keeping memories alive for former students.

Pride In Our Heritage Quilt Show III - September 5 & 6

Discover Giles County Historical Society article from the Virginian Leader, August 26, 2009:

The Pride in Our Heritage Quilt Show III will take place at the historic Andrew Johnston House, 208 North Main Street, Pearisburg, Virginia on September 5th and 6th from 1pm to 5pm. The Giles County Historical Society and Giles Arts Council are sponsoring the event which will feature contemporary and antique hand-made, hand- and machine-quilted, bed- and crib-sized quilts and wall hangings. Admission is $3.00.

Certified quilt appraiser Neva Hart will be on hand both days to provide verbal or written appraisals of your quilts for insurance or donation purposes. Verbal appraisals are $15 per quilt or 3 quilts for $30. Written appraisals are $50.

Quilt expert Paula C. Golden will present a slide show and lecture entitled “Quilts of Virginia” on Saturday. Golden co-authored the book Quilts of Virginia 1607-1899: The Birth of America Through the Eye of a Needle.

Antique quilts from the collection of Tony Williams will be featured in an antique bed turning both days of the show. The quilts are placed on a bed then one by one they are turned and held up for the audience while a narrator describes the quilt, its date, and its story. The antique bed turning is a fun and informative event for the whole family!

Local quilters will be on hand throughout the house demonstrating various quilting techniques. A viewers’ choice award will be given to the contemporary quilt most admired by visitors. Refreshments will be served.

The Giles County Historical Society (www.gilescountyhistorical.org) works to perpetuate interest in the history of Giles County; provides a repository for Giles County family histories, documents, and artifacts; assists those interested in genealogical research; and voices concerns and pursues the preservation of any and all endangered Giles County history including artifacts, sites, and records. The newly-formed Giles Arts Council (www.gilesartscouncil.org) is a non profit organization dedicated to the encouragement, nurturing and promotion of the visual, performing and needle arts in Giles County.

Smocking Class, August 29th, 2:30-4:30pm

Discover Giles County Historical Society article from the Virginian Leader, August 19, 2009:

Beth Cross, a member of the Red Bud Chapter of the Smocking Arts Guild of America, will teach Smocking on Saturday, August 29th from 2:30 to 4:30 in the latest class in the Giles County Historical Society’s and the Giles Arts Council’s Needle Arts Class series. Smocking is a form of utilitarian and decorative stitching that has been in use since the 13th century. Smocks were loose fitting blouses of linen worn by farm workers and other laborers. The loose fit provided protection and warmth, as well as freedom of movement. The linen was gathered into pleats at the yoke and sleeves. Smocking stitches secured the pleats creating stretch in the garment while also providing decoration and identification.

During the period of industrialization, smocks became dangerous for workers to wear because they were loose fitting and could get caught in machinery. Though smocking was no longer a necessity on work clothes, the embroidery stitches used became popular on women’s and children’s clothing as decoration.

What used to be a rather laborious process of creating the pleats, has become easier with the use of a pleater which gathers the fabric. The focus of smocking today is on the embroidery stitching rather than the gathering of the fabric. Pleating creates a canvas on which to work with the pleats creating vertical lines and the threads holding the pleats in place creating horizontal lines. Simple outline, cable, trellis, and wave stitches can then be used to create intricate and beautiful patterns on the pleated cloth.

Join us on August 29th to learn smocking stitches that can embellish clothing or Christmas ornaments. Please contact the Historical Society to register for the class.

Questions About Pearisburg's Civil War Hospital

Discover Giles County Historical Society article from the Virginian Leader, August 5, 2009:

Throughout the year, Giles County Historical Society receives many requests for information via telephone, e-mail, and postal mail. Many are genealogical questions or questions about communities or the location of cemeteries. Occasionally, we receive questions that are obviously directed to the wrong place like those about President Andrew Johnson or Giles County, Tennessee.

Some questions are just puzzling. One Civil War question was about a family member who was in the Pearisburg hospital in October 1862. We knew that there was a hospital here during the Battle of Pearisburg in May 1862, but assumed the hospital had been closed when troops left town and thought that maybe the letter writer meant the Petersburg hospital instead.

As Kate Delaney has researched the Civil War in Giles County to update our exhibits, she found additional references to a hospital in Pearisburg. During a visit to the National Archives in Washington, DC this summer, Delaney was able to verify the existence of a hospital in Pearisburg through monthly records from 1863 to 1865. The records clearly indicate Pearisburg hospital in Giles County, Virginia had patients numbering from 30 to 180. The records also show the number of surgeons, nurses, cooks, laundresses, and other personnel on staff.

A report of the sick and wounded from the week of June 4th, 1864 found at the National Archives clearly shows that there was a large hospital in Pearisburg during the Civil War. During that week there were 77 patients in the hospital, 13 in private quarters, and 15 medical officers and attendants present.

Now, of course, we have additional questions! Was the hospital in the Courthouse for the duration of the War or was it somewhere else? Where did all of the sick and wounded come from to fill the hospital? Where were the deceased buried? If you have any information that can help us solve the mystery of Pearisburg’s Civil War hospital, please contact us.

Giles County Confederate Memorial 100th Anniversary Celebration

Discover Giles County Historical Society article from the Virginian Leader, July 29, 2009:

A parade of Civil War re-enactors, a Civil War encampment, Gen. Robert E. Lee and his staff, and an antebellum fashion show will be included in the festivities surrounding the 100th anniversary of Giles County's Civil War Memorial on August 8th in Pearisburg. The McComas Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) and the Giles County Historical Society have organized the day's events.

The parade begins at 11am following a route from the Andrew Johnston House to the Giles County Courthouse where the UDC will present a program honoring the monument which was dedicated by the UDC on August 9, 1909. The marble and bronze memorial stands on the courthouse lawn as a memorial to Giles County's Confederate soldiers.

From 12-5pm, re-enactors will be camped on the lawn of the Andrew Johnston House at the Giles County Historical Society for the public to learn more about a soldier's life during the Civil War. The 1829 Andrew Johnston House and 1857 Doctor's Office will be open for visitors, the Research Office will welcome people seeking Giles County genealogical information, and a Civil War exhibit will be on display in the Museum. The afternoon program will include a duel and a desertion trial skit, infantry and artillery drills, a fashion show featuring women's clothing of the period, and a talk with Gen. Robert E. Lee and his staff. Gen. Lee is portrayed by Al Stone who has portrayed the General for several History Channel specials and is well-regarded nationally for is accurate impression.

About the McComas Chapter, United Daughters of the Confederacy
The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) is a lineage society organized in 1894 to preserve and protect the history of the Civil War and those who served the Confederate States of America, including the role of Southern women during the war and the reconstruction of the South. The McComas Chapter of the UDC was formed in Pearisburg in 1896 and named for Capt. William Wirt McComas, a Giles County soldier killing in battle in North Carolina in 1862.

About the Giles County Historical Society
The Giles County Historical Society works to perpetuate interest in the history of Giles County; provides a repository for Giles County family histories, documents, and artifacts; assists those interested in genealogical research; and voices concerns and pursues the preservation of any and all endangered Giles County history including artifacts, sites, and records.