Diamond Community Quilts & Quilters

Overview

In Spring 2001, Mary Hamilton along with friends and classmates from the rural town of Diamond, Missouri were filmed for a Home and Garden Television (HGTV) special showcasing a "lost & found" 70-year-old unfinished quilt-top, nicknamed The Jones Creek Quilt.

The 20-block quilt-top was thought to be destroyed in a house fire decades earlier yet was discovered wrapped in newspaper, buried in the dirt cellar of this same property. Once discovered, it was presented to Mary Hamilton as it had been handed down from mother-to-daughter for generations.

The Jones Creek Quilt was a gift to Hamilton's great-grandparents John P. and Matilda Johanna Augusta Doerge Greninger on their 47th wedding anniversary of March 6, 1931.

Mary Hamilton, wanting to share the quilt with all her family and community, first set out to research the contributors of the quilt blocks and then contact their relatives.

When more than 200 "descendants of the quilt" had been identified, Hamilton and Tonya Callaway, a classmate, 6th cousin, and a descendant of one of the quilt block artists, arranged for a community celebration: a pie social, live music and a showing of the quilt. In addition, they invited any quilters who also wanted to share their quilts at the gathering.

In a rare showing, more than 25 community quilts were displayed and hundreds of people came as far away as Washington, Texas, South Carolina, Illinois, California and Pennsylvania.

Mary Greninger (married to the late Lincoln Greninger) was the only living survivor of the original quilters from The Jones Creek Quilt and was honored at the celebration -- as well as Louise Pritchard Hamilton who discovered the quilt in her dirt cellar basement in 1997.

Two years later in May 2003, Hamilton arranged for several community quilts as well as The Jones Creek Quilt to be on display at the nearby George Washington Carver National Monument.

This site will continue to add information about these two Diamond Community Quilts events -- Spring 2001 and May 2003 -- as well as welcomes your stories and photos of other Diamond quilts or quilters.

Monday, March 2, 2009

March 6, 2009 - 125th Wedding Anniversary of John P. and Matilda Greninger

Friday, March 6, 2009 marks the 125th wedding anniversary of my great-grandparents John P. and Matilda Johanna Augusta Doerge Greninger, who were the original owners of the friendship quilt-top, which latter became known as The Jones Creek Quilt.

The quilt-top was found in the dirt cellar of the house that once belonged to my grandparents, Grady and Edith Greninger Smith, by my step-mother Louise Pritchard Hamilton in 1997. It was presented to me as a gift upon the birth of my son, Sky Hamilton Texier who was born that same year.

The quilt-top was quickly dubbed and affectionally called The Jones Creek Quilt -- named for the creek that ran through the two adjoining properties owned by my grandmother and her parents.

The quilt-top was passed down from mothers to daughters: Matilda Greninger to Edith Greninger Smith to Mary Ruth Smith Hamilton to Mary "Sequoia" Hamilton.