On a rather cool autumn morning in 1870, James Clark Thomas and his wife, the former Mary Elizabeth Lawrence, and their six children climbed into their mule-drawn covered wagon on Donaldson Creek in Trigg County, Kentucky and prepared to leave for Lonoke County in Arkansas.
Clark, whose nickname was “Muck” was about to say “giddap,” when his mother, Margaret Thomas interrupted. “Wait a minute,” she said. “Those children need to be wrapped up better or they’ll catch a world of cold.” She went back into the house and came out carrying a quilt. “Here,” she said to Mary Stanley, who at age ten, was the oldest of the six children. “Take this and see to it that all you children keep warm. After you get there, you can claim the quilt as yours.”
Clark was 35 and Mary Elizabeth was 32. The children in addition to Mary Stanley were, Ezekiel, the only son, Drucilla, Harriett, Alpha Adeline and Amanda Elizabeth, who was only a few months old. Their seventh and last child, Jemima Emma, was born in Arkansas in 1872.
The reason Clark Thomas pulled up stakes and moved to Arkansas has been guessed at for years. He had inherited more than a hundred acres of fertile farmland in the Donaldson Creek Valley when his father, James Thomas, Jr., died in 1864. Just why he sold it and moved to Lonoke County, Arkansas, no one among his many descendants remember today. Undoubtedly letters were sent back to Kentucky telling about their 200-mile trek, but little is known about the route they traveled or how many days they spent on the way.
One thing we do know – Mary Stanley took her grandmother Margaret at her word – the quilt was definitely hers. Ten years later, on February 16, 1879, Mary Stanley married Thomas Jesse McCasland. She was 19 and he was 21. When she and her new husband began their life together, the quilt which her grandmother Margaret had given her in 1870 went with her. It’s been in her family ever since.
Thomas and Mary Stanley subsequently moved to Oklahoma and in the ensuring years, the quilt was passed along to their daughter, Monnie. Due to its age, this family heirloom was brought out only on special occasions, or to show it to some of Grandmother Margaret’s other descendants. All through the years since the quilt left Kentucky, it was used to help keep Thomas descendants warm during those cold Oklahoma winters. Despite its use, it is in a remarkable state of preservation, with only a bit of wear apparent around the edges.
The possession of the quilt was passed on to Betty Bradford Bergman of Pryor, Oklahoma, the daughter of Monnie McCasland and granddaughter of Mary Stanley. Betty passed away in January of 2020. She was quoted as saying, “I inherited the quilt from my mother. My daughter keeps it in her cedar chest for me. Since she is my only daughter, she will be the next owner.” That daughter and current owner of the quilt is Lisa Anne Bergman Dennis of Oklahoma.
Margaret Thomas had been a widow for 22 years when she died in 1886. The mother of six children, she may well have given quilts to others of her family, but this example of her handiwork likely is the only one in existence today.
Sisters, (Rear) Mary Stanley Thomas McCasland, Drucilla Thomas Smyth,
(Front) Emma Thomas Martin, Amanda Thomas Ledbetter
Information for this article based on “With Love, from Grandma Peggy”, by Edison Thomas, TBA Newsletter, July 2000.
THE LINEAGE:
(Mary Stanley Thomas McCasland was the first child of James Clark “Muck” and Mary Elizabeth Lawrence Thomas and the granddaughter of James, Jr. and Margaret Ethridge Thomas. James, Jr. was the sixth child of James and Mary Standley Thomas.)
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