Double Irish Chain and Scotch Thistle quilt, Anna Gleissner Good

Exhibition Label:
"Quilts: A Thread of Modernism," Aug-2005, Debra Thimmesch and Barbara Brackman
Anna Gleissner, born in Bavaria, came to Abilene, Kansas, when she was a child. She married Milton Good, who made a career in the dry goods business. The Goods also lived in Kansas City and Eskridge, Kansas, before the widowed Anna moved to Emporia to live near daughter Rose Kretsinger. A housemother in a fraternity, she was killed in an automobile accident when she was 65.

In 1925, Anna came across a needlework booklet from the magazine Modern Priscilla. The name, a combination of Colonial pedigree and novel style, summarizes trends in quiltmaking at the time. Modern Priscilla’s mission was to elevate the design of American needlework, admonishing readers who continued to use traditional patterns: “Little is done in this country to evolve any new standards in ornamentation.” Many of their designs echoed the simplicity of the European “aesthetic” movement, but they also offered traditional patterns to suit readers’ taste. The “Thistle” is drawn from their pattern for a spread titled “Patches for a Man’s Room.”

Anna must have seen all the open space in the thistle spread as something that needed to be filled. She found the old Irish Chain design in the same booklet and combined the two patterns, a blend of tradition and modernism that might have horrified the magazine’s editor. The quilt has faded; the grayish calico was once probably purple.