I know – the image is blurry. But you get the gist of it. This embroidery pattern was published in Canadian newspapers in 1947.
The Canadian National Exhibition or ‘CNE’, was reopening in 1947, after being closed from 1942-46 when the grounds were in use by the military. To celebrate the reopening, and to build on national postwar pride, a quilt contest was announced, offering first prize of $100. The quilt theme was to be a map of Canada, and I have found the map pattern offered by mail order through several newspapers. The map size was only 17″x21″, but the quilt was to be “regulation size”. The idea offered was to create the map using embroidery or applique, and then to create surrounding blocks and a border in the entrants own design. Here are the instructions I found in the Cornwall Daily Standard (Cornwall Ontario), March 3, 1947:
From March that year until August, newspapers provided repeat instructions and stories about people engaging in the contest. Here is a story from The Toronto Star on May 10, 1947:
On August 28, 1947, The Toronto Star posts this announcement, followed with a photo of three models holding what I believe to be the winning quilt. The quilt appears dissimilar to the embroidered map, appearing to be hand drawn (in ink?) rather than embroidered, but it is difficult to be sure based on this one photo. Mrs. Martha Watson of Drinkwater, Saskatchewan, won second prize.
So, I looked up the two women who won, Mrs. M. McLaren and Mrs. B. Urquhart, and also Gordon Birch who is given credit for drafting the design. All three appear to have lived a few blocks apart, so Gordon Birch’s mother may have been a friend of Mrs. McLaren and Mrs. Urquhart. Gordon, likely aged 24 in 1947, appears to have been in the military during the war – he is mentioned a few times in the Toronto Star. Mrs. Thomas Urquhart, age 60, of Ravenna Crescent, was injured in a pedestrian accident in September 1947. This may be the same Mrs. Urquhart, which would provide us with a sense of her age at this time. I haven’t done any genealogy research of these names.
I have found two quilts which were likely completed for the contest. The first is in Cornwall Community Museum in Cornwall, Ontario. I will contact the museum this week to inquire about getting better images and perhaps arranging to see the quilt in person. You can view it at this link: https://cornwallcommunitymuseum.wordpress.com/2017/04/17/celebrating-canadas-150th-heritage-quilts/
The second quilt is interesting because it was submitted by a quilter in the United States, Bertha Stenge. Bertha was a prolific quilter, submitted to and won many quilt contests, and had submitted to previous CNE contests. Unfortunately her quilt for this contest arrived past the deadline so did not qualify for a prize, but it was exhibited. It is now in the collection of the Illinois State Museum.
If you are like me, and long to see an image of the winning quilt, and in fact of any quilts produced from this pattern or from a map of Canada in 1947, or even just a completed embroidery from the map pattern, I would love to hear from you if you uncover anything. Of course, finding an original copy of the pattern would be absolutely amazing, and I would seek permission to reproduce it (if permission is required), so it can be available to anyone interested in stitching it. There simply must be a copy of this pattern out there.
If we can locate this pattern, I thought it would be great fun to run a new contest for 2027, 80 years after the original contest, open to people anywhere in the world who want to embroider and/or applique the map. Maybe the Canadian Quilters Association would sponsor the contest. In these days when, as Canadians, we feel protective of our national identity, I think reproducing this map may be of interest to others. And I imagine that there are examples of finished 1947 quilt submissions in other museums and private collections across the country, that would be very interesting to see and catalogue as a record of this story. I am hoping that the archives at the CNE might have information on the fifty entries – names, images – they received, but I have not had a chance to investigate their archives yet.
Would anyone like to join me on this Canadian quilt history sleuthing expedition?
