Elm Creek Quilts #14
Simon & Schuster
April 2009
On Sale: March 31, 2009
Featuring: Sylvia Bergstrom Compson
352 pages ISBN: 1416533168 EAN: 9781416533160 Hardcover Add to Wish List
Master Quilter Sylvia Bergstrom Compson treasures an antique
quilt called by three names -- Birds in the Air, after its
pattern; the Runaway Quilt, after the woman who sewed it;
and the Elm Creek Quilt, after the place to which its maker
longed to return. That quilter was Joanna, a fugitive slave
who traveled by the Underground Railroad to reach safe haven
in 1859 at Elm Creek Farm.
Though Joanna's freedom proved
short-lived -- she was forcibly returned by slave catchers
to Josiah Chester's plantation in Virginia -- she left the
Bergstrom family a most precious gift, her son. Hans and
Anneke Bergstrom, along with maiden aunt Gerda, raised the
boy as their own, and the secret of his identity died with
their generation. Now it falls to Sylvia -- drawing upon
Gerda's diary and Joanna's quilt -- to connect Joanna's past
to present-day Elm Creek Manor.
Just as Joanna could not
have foreseen that, generations later, her quilt would
become the subject of so much speculation and wonder, Sylvia
and her friends never could have imagined the events Joanna
witnessed in her lifetime. Punished for her escape by being
sold off to her master's brother in Edisto Island, South
Carolina, Joanna grieves over the loss of her son and
resolves to run again, to reunite with him someday in the
free North. Farther south than she has ever been, she
nevertheless finds allies, friends, and even love in the
slave quarter of Oak Grove, a cotton plantation where her
skill with needle and thread soon becomes highly
prized.
Through hardship and deprivation, Joanna dreams of
freedom and returning to Elm Creek Farm. Determined to
remember each landmark on the route north, Joanna pieces a
quilt of scraps left over from the household sewing,
concealing clues within the meticulous stitches. Later, in
service as a seamstress to the new bride of a Confederate
officer, Joanna moves on to Charleston, where secrets she
keeps will affect the fate of a nation, and her abilities
and courage enable her to aid the country and the people she
loves most.
The knowledge that scraps can be pieced and
sewn into simple lines -- beautiful both in and of
themselves and also for what they represent and what they
can accomplish -- carries Joanna through dark days.
Sustaining herself and her family through ingenuity and art
during the Civil War and into Reconstruction, Joanna leaves
behind a remarkable artistic legacy that, at last, allows
Sylvia to discover the fate of the long-lost quilter.
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