Blanket Stories: Talking Stick, Works Progress, Steward

A site-specific installation commissioned by Curator Faith Brower and the High Desert Museum in Bend, Oregon

79.
Debbie Sollars
Bend, OR
Tags
Generations, Grandmothers

My Great, Great Grandmother was born and raised in Klamath Co. on the Klamath Indian Reservation. Her name is Emma Barkley Coburn. She had 8 children and lived on a remote ranch. I was given a quilt to care for that came from the ranch from my Great Grandmother, Oskie. Oskie remembered making the quilt with her mother Emma and her sisters. The quilt was made strictly for warmth in the winter. All the small squares are from wool scraps.

While not pretty, it definitely served its purpose of providing warmth. It’s a very heavy gray quilt. It was made in the very late 1800s.