the sugar camp quilt an elm creek quilts novel

Through hardship and deprivation, Joanna dreams of freedom and returning to Elm Creek Farm.

Farther south than she has ever been, she nevertheless finds allies, friends, and even love in the slave quarter of Oak Grove, a cotton plantation where her skill with needle and thread soon becomes highly prized. Punished for her escape by being sold off to her master's brother in Edisto Island, South Carolina, Joanna grieves over the loss of her son and resolves to run again, to reunite with him someday in the free North. Just as Joanna could not have foreseen that, generations later, her quilt would become the subject of so much speculation and wonder, Sylvia and her friends never could have imagined the events Joanna witnessed in her lifetime. Now it falls to Sylvia - drawing upon Gerda's diary and Joanna's quilt - to connect Joanna's past to present-day Elm Creek Manor. Hans and Anneke Bergstrom, along with maiden aunt Gerda, raised the boy as their own, and the secret of his identity died with their generation. Though Joanna's freedom proved short-lived - she was forcibly returned by slave catchers to Josiah Chester's plantation in Virginia - she left the Bergstrom family a most precious gift, her son. That quilter was Joanna, a fugitive slave who traveled by the Underground Railroad to reach safe haven in 1859 at Elm Creek Farm. Chiaverini makes her characters and plots so real readers feel as if theyve stepped back in time.Master Quilter Sylvia Bergstrom Compson treasures an antique quilt called by three names - Birds in the Air, after its pattern the Runaway Quilt, after the woman who sewed it and the Elm Creek Quilt, after the place to which its maker longed to return. This is a series that has touched my heart. Review Quotes One of the most compelling storytellers Ive read. With the help of the Elm Creek Quilters and clues hidden within antique quilts discovered in the manors attic, Sylvia stitches together the pieces of her past and decodes the true nature of the Bergstrom legacy. But little did the staunchly abolitionist Gerda know that a traitor was among them, placing the Bergstroms in grave danger and leading to family discord, betrayal, and a secret held for generations. Gerdas memoir chronicles the founding of Elm Creek Manor and the tumultuous years when Hans, Anneke, and Gerda Bergstrom sheltered fugitive slaves within its walls, using quilts as a signal of sanctuary. Book Synopsis After learning of her familys ties to the slaveholding South, Sylvia Compson scours her attic for clues and discovers a window into the world of her ancestors: the memoir of her great-grandfathers spinster sister, Gerda Bergstrom.

About the Book Includes a reading group guide: discussion questions and suggestions.

The sugar camp quilt an elm creek quilts novel