EVERETT — When Anna Christina Robertson died Oct. 28 at the age of 100, nobody was surprised to find boxes of needlework stashed deep in her closet.
A great-great grandmother, Robertson rarely watched TV or sat idle. More often she had an embroidery project in her hands. Doilies, needlepoint pillow covers, dresser scarves and embroidered dish towels filled the boxes.
What her granddaughter Christina Wandel didn’t expect to find, though, were 24 mysterious quilt blocks.
In 1926, the country’s 150th birthday, the Everett Daily Herald (as The Herald was called then) sponsored a colonial history quilt contest on its Society pages. First prize was $5.
Then in 1976, the bicentennial year, newspaper staff reprinted the patterns for the quilt. Depicted were scenes that included a Norse ship, American Indians, early settlers spinning wool and hunting and finally the first U.S. flag.
Robertson, who also loved history, evidently clipped all the patterns and hand stitched the designs on squares cut from old cotton sheets.
Nobody in the family remembered the project.
In November, Wandel, 57, of Silver Lake, sorted through the quilt squares and found the newspaper clippings. Her grandmother’s treasure needed to see the light, she decided.
Wandel took the quilt blocks home and finished what her grandmother had started.
A light blue fabric replaced the now faded blue material Robertson had picked out to offset the embroidered squares. Wandel chose a red, white and blue backing material, added the quilt batting and sewed it all together.
Then she gave it to her mother this week as a Christmas gift.
Loraine Chambers — Robertson’s daughter and Wandel’s mother — speaks highly of her mother’s craft work and ability to pass on family traditions.
Chambers, 78, of Shoreline, likes to crochet and still darns up the holes in her socks just the way her mother taught.
Robertson learned the skill herself while growing up in a family of 10 in Nebraska and Colorado. After she married, Robertson and her husband, Proe, farmed until the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl forced them to move west to Arlington. There they finished raising their family.
Robertson retired as a support staff employee in 1972 from the regional office of the Federal Emergency Management Agency near Bothell and moved to Mountlake Terrace after her husband died.
Five generations of Robertson’s family gathered at her church in July to celebrate her 100th birthday, and the city proclaimed Anna C. Robertson Day.
Much beloved, Robertson was missed on Christmas this year.
“It’s from me and from Grandma,” Wandel told Chambers when she handed her mother the quilt gift.
Confused at first, Chambers opened the present.
“It surprised the living daylights out of me. Then it made me cry,” Chambers said. “What a wonderful gift from my mother and my daughter.”
Gale Fiege: 425-339-3427; gfiege@heraldnet.com.
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