The Fred Light Museum's Bernadette Leslie with one of the Canadian Red Cross war-time quilts, called "Four-Patch Rabbits," that dates back to the early 1940s. (Angela Brown/battlefordsNOW Staff)

By Angela Brown

Veterans' Room

Fred Light Museum receives Canadian Red Cross war-time quilts

Apr 19, 2023 | 12:41 PM

The Fred Light Museum in the town of Battleford recently received a donation of two Canadian Red Cross war-time quilts.

The quilts will be displayed in its Veterans’ Room and during the 2023 Honour Our Veterans banner program unveiling ceremony in the fall.

Museum manager, Bernadette Leslie, said they will be an important addition to the museum’s collection.

“These were made in 1941, and they are still in wonderful condition,” she said. “It’s just showing how Canadian women helped to contribute to the Second World War, any way they could.”

Canadian women hand-made more than 400,000 comfort quilts that were given to the Canadian Red Cross who sent them to England to be used by families in need, impacted by the bombing during the Second World War, as part of the civilian relief effort. A group of women in England – the Canadian Red Cross Quilt Research Group – have been collecting these quilts and the stories behind them for the past 18 years. The quilts were commonly found in thrift shops in England. Some were also given to the group by various families.

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More than 60 of these quilts that were collected by the UK group are now being given to museums across Canada. Lucie Heins, a curator at the Royal Alberta Museum in Edmonton, is involved in the project to distribute these quilts to museums in Canada interested in receiving them.

The second Canadian Red Cross war-time quilt that was donated to the Fred Light Museum. This is the blue floral quilt once owned by the Taylor family in England during the Second World War. (Angela Brown/battlefordsNOW Staff)

When the Fred Light Museum was contacted, Leslie expressed her interest in the quilts right away.

“[I] said: Yes, most definitely we would love to have them and to display them,” she said.

The museum was given a cream-coloured patterned quilt, called “Four-Patch Rabbits,” and a blue floral-patterned quilt.

The Fred Light Museum also was given a documented account of the story of the family in Bath, England, that received the blue quilt after their house was bombed and burned during the Baedeker Raids in 1942.

“The family were trapped in the house, and Eileen [Taylor], aged 10, was lifted out of a window to summon the fire brigade,” the description read. “She had long hair, let out of plaits, ready for bed, and it took her mother hours the following day to brush all the glass, brick dust and soot from her hair.”

Leslie is thrilled to have the two war-time quilts now part of the museum’s collection.

“I”m honoured to have them, to tell the story,” she said. “[They are] going to fit in nicely into our display upstairs, for our Veterans’ Room.”

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Angela.Brown@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow