It Was Ugly!

Week 20: #52 Ancestors – Textile

By Eilene Lyon

I did a bad thing. I’m still ashamed.

My grandmother, Clare (Davis) Smith, said she had an heirloom to pass on to me, if I would promise to keep and preserve it. I broke that promise.

Partly because of a misunderstanding about the nature of this heirloom. Partly because it had no story (an heirloom without a story is just an artifact). Mostly because, well, it was ugly.

Poor excuse, I know.

Grandma Smith told me she had a lap robe, made of beaver fur, that had been used on family sleigh rides. No other details, such as who used it for sleigh rides, where or when. I have lately come to realize that this item likely belonged to my great-grandmother, Clara (Ransom) Davis. It could even have come from a generation earlier.

This quote comes from a letter written by Abigail (Bedford) Jenkins, Clara’s grandmother. It mentions Emma Jenkins, Clara’s mother, who was 18 in 1853, when Abby wrote this to her husband, Henry, in California. (I’ve added punctuation for clarity.)

“P[hiladelphia], with her usual wildness, snatched up a piece of paper with ‘I’ll write to pap’ and Emma coming said ‘so will I.’ They wrote a few lines which I enclose. They have been sleighing a great [d]eal and are full of life. There is now a heavy fall of snow and will soon be ‘girls will you take a ride?’”¹

If this was Emma’s lap robe, I am truly heartsick for banishing it from my home. The sentimental value would have trumped the idea of an ugly, musty textile lurking in my closet.

My mother told me this blanket rode in the back window shelf of the family car while she was growing up. That would explain why the solid-brown back side had been badly faded. Beaver fur. Oooo, I thought, recalling my mother’s mink stole. (Ahem, yes, I got rid of that, too.)

If that lap robe originated from the backside of a large, aquatic rodent, you would never know it. It did have some heft, and the nap on the front had a velvety texture. The design, however, was most unfortunate. Humongous flowers in bright colors – red, yellow, green, of dubious species – covered the entire front side. Hideous, it was.

Because I did not have a hankering for family history in those days, it never occurred to me to photograph the thing before forever removing it from my still-recovering sight. (I can’t unsee the damn thing.) I tried, without success, to find something similar online to link to. It appears that people who preserve old sleigh blankets generally have better taste than my ancestors.

This is the best (worst?) I could find. Stunning, indeed.

My confession at this late date is in vain. Grandma (R.I.P.) will never forgive my dereliction of family duty when I took that “priceless heirloom” rag to the thrift store.

Feature image: Two Sleighs on a Country Road, Canada, c. 1835-1848. Image includes a variety of fur throws and clothing, including hides of animals not native to Canada. (Wikimedia Commons)