HURON – Time waits for no man, as the saying goes.
But it is possible that too much time has gone by for Dennis Meyer of rural Huron to find out for certain why a beautiful quilt, sewn during World War II, contains the embroidered names of many young women, several of whom were related to, or neighbors of, his late father.
“There aren’t any of them left,” he said of the names on the quilt. “They’re all gone.”
Still, he and his sister are determined to keep trying.
Two years ago, antique collector Andy Gross displayed the quilt in the Women’s Building at the South Dakota State Fair.
The Plainsman ran a front-page photo and story on it, which is how Meyer first learned of its existence.
“I told him if he ever wanted to sell that quilt that I would like to have it because I knew a lot of the ladies who had sewn on it and several of them were my relatives,” Meyer said.
Gross acquired the quilt at an auction in Huron about 10 years ago, but doesn’t recall which one.
“If I could find what auction he bought it on it would help,” Meyer said.
Because so many names on the quilt are related to his dad, or were neighbors, Meyer wonders if it was made for him.
“The minute I saw it I thought that,” he said.
His father, Hubert, had five brothers, none of whom served in WWII. Neither did any of his cousins in Nebraska.
His dad fought in North Africa and Italy in the 109th Engineer Battalion that saw heavy combat. It’s likely why the quilt was never sent to him.
The quilt has a red, white and blue background and consists of 44 individual representations of envelopes that are embroidered with the names of women as well as stamped postmarks with the date and time. They look like the outside of real envelopes.
“All these people are related to him,” Meyer said of his dad. “One of them was an old girlfriend of his.”
Huron area names on the quilt include Groothuis, Koch, Henrickson, Kohlmeyer and Meyer. There are other names of women who lived in Nebraska and Iowa.
“We used to get together with these people for family reunions,” Meyer said.
Meyer and his wife, Loretta, took the quilt to Nebraska a month ago to show it to shirt-tail relatives. One gentleman they talked to, now in his 90s, said he didn’t remember his mom sewing on it, but pointed out her name.
The women embroidered their names and addresses to look like they had signed their names. “That’s my mom’s handwriting,” the Nebraska man said.
One of Meyer’s great aunts, who lived two miles west of him, is on the quilt, as are the names of two of his aunts.
He said his sister in Sioux Falls, who has experience in genealogy, is also doing some research.
“I don’t know why the quilt was made with all these people relating to my dad and yet dad never got the quilt,” he said.
But he did put to rest the speculation that perhaps the names are those of moms and girlfriends back home and that the U.S. air mail quilt represented letters sent home to them by their husbands and boyfriends as a fundraiser.
“They did not have boyfriends and husbands in World War II,” Meyer said.
He thought right away when he saw it that the quilt was meant for one person, and that it could be his dad because most of the names were familiar to him as relatives and neighbors of his family.
For now, he is left with more questions than answers.
“I just wish I had known about it 10 years ago,” he said. “There were still some alive then who could have answered the question,” Meyer said.
