Emma Andres Collection

So, now, you know a little about Emma Andres.  And you are wondering why all of a sudden I am so interested in Emma.   I’ve either done the most marvelous thing or possibly the worst thing I have every done. 

I have loved Emma Andres from the very first time I heard about her from Laurene Sinema in 1990 when Janet Carruth and Laurene were having their article about Emma published in Uncoverings 1990.

You may know Emma Andres quilts, scrapbooks, artwork, and correspondence have been in the care of a family friend for the last 30 years. During seminar in Phoenix in 2016 Janet Carruth mentioned the caretakers might want to sell the collection. In May of 2017 I went to Prescott to visit with the family, just to find out more about the collection and discuss its future.  Did they really want to sell, did it need to go to a museum, and were they willing to sell some or part of the collection?  They very generously showed all of the quilts to me and my husband, Ralph.  I was surprised to learn, not only were there quilts they had many boxes of scrapbooks and notebooks stacked in the hallway that would go with the collection.  They shared the quilt appraisals Gail Van Hosen had done in Sept 2016.  That was pretty shocking to see the appraisal price.  It is always awkward to start the discussion of price and if they were willing to sell any of the quilts separately. They would not consider selling anything separately.  Believe me I tried, I just knew there was no way I could purchase the entire collection at the price they were expecting based on the appraisals. With my husband’s blessings we did make an offer that day.  Several days later we heard they refused our offer and presented what they wanted for the collection.  I began to think of ways to organize and raise $60,000! Time was a major factor with the family.  I called Laraine Jones at the Arizona Historical Society asking for advice about such a large collection.  My thoughts from the beginning were to get the collection somewhere it could be cared for and also the letters and scrapbooks be accessible for research. We discussed a few issues with such a huge collection. It seemed almost impossible on such short notice.  The organizing, the time, the energy, I just did not think I could make it happen.

But I do have the rescuer gene.  Just a good thing my passion is quilts and not animals. As with everyone, lots of other things were going on in our life at the time.  I really wasn’t looking for something else to do.  I am a quiltmaker and quilt collector, not a researcher, nor do I want to become one.  There is so much in the collection it is totally overwhelming!  But again, I felt a calling, that rescuer personality, maybe Emma, Florence Peto, Charles Pratt, Carrie Hall and Laurene Sinema were all together directing this into my hands.  That somehow I was the right person at the right time to make sure Emma and her quilts are not forgotten and can be enjoyed by many for many, many years. Of course I was discussing all this with my best friend, my husband, who appreciates and understand the importance of our history through quilts, especially our Arizona history.  It was totally his idea to purchase the collection ourselves.  We could borrow the money from our retirement account.  It was easy, fast and we would worry about how and what to do with the collection later. He did have to convince me, it was a lot of money!

When we went to Prescott to pick up everything  I had no idea what there really was.  There are 21 quilts total.  14 made by Emma, 4 quilts Emma got from Florence Peto, 1 quilt and 1 top made by Charles Pratt and 1 crazy quilt made by Emma’s mother. A trunk full of handmade dolls by Carrie Hall. Amazing.  Letters and correspondence from Carrie that fill one whole tub.  All of Emma’s ribbons and all of Charles Pratt’s ribbons, over 400.  Art work and paintings by Emma.  Letters from Boys Town and Father Flanagan, Emma was very religious.  So much research is in the boxes just needing to be in the right place for the research to happen.  That can’t happen if they stay in my closet.  It is really all too much for one person.

 

A few of the many topic for research in the Emma Andres Collection.

Emma and her quilts

Carrie Hall and her dolls

Florence Peto and the four quilts Emma acquired from her. Three of the quilts have been published.  This President Wreath Quilt was in Peto's 1939 Historic Quilts.  

Charles Pratt and other men quilters Emma corresponded with.  Many letters in the collection.  Including a metal box with over 400 ribbons won by Charles Pratt in 48 states for his quilts.

Ribbons and entries in the County Fair, controversy about the swastika at the state fair.

Joyce Gross and the Spinning Wheel Lady (Joyce somehow got the Florence Peto scrapbook from Emma and gave it to the LA County Museum of Art) road trip and research on this story. I have found out the LACMA has no record of the scrapbooks being donated by Joyce Gross.  Janet Carruth and Laurene Sinema saw these scrapbooks sometime around 1995. These scrapbooks hold valuable information on the 4 quilts Emma acquired from Florence Peto.

Emma’s artwork and paintings

Emma’s family, the cigar store in Prescott.  Emma’s mothers 1895 Crazy Quilt. 

Boys Town and Father Flannigan                                                             

Other religious experiences, yep there is a scrapbook of those with photos!

Emma's Happiness Museum and the people from all over the country who came to visit, found Albert Small listed in a guest register and a note that he loved Arizona and took home some cactus. 

And this list is just a few things from one scrapbook. The scrapbooks are mostly by subject. Maybe 10 others not including Carrie Hall and Fr. Flanagan.

Emma was a 2009 inductee in the Arizona Quilters Hall of Fame.  In 2017 I submitted Emma’s name for consideration into The Quilters Hall of Fame in Indiana. 

As we learn more of Emma and her story, my desire is for her quilts to be seen by many. For her ephemera to be available for further research and her story to be told for all to hear.

Emma Andres Quilts and Her Happiness Museum -- Part 2 of 3

Emma Andres Quilts and Her Happiness Museum -- Part 2 of 3

Emma Andres owns the Happiness Museum in Prescott, Ariz. She was a "fine" quiltmaker whose quilts show imagination and originality as well as fine technique. To JOURNAL readers she is better known as the generous friend who loaned us scrapbooks she kept, filled with mementos and correspondence from her friends Florence Peto, Bertha Stenge, Carrie Hall, and "Dad" Pratt.

This article is based on in-person interviews in April 1980 and June 1981 and numerous phone calls over the two year period as well as Miss Andres' scrapbooks.

    Written by Joyce Gross   
Published in her Quilters' Journal,  Volume 4, No 2, Summer 1981

About the time Emma finished her first quilt, she read a newspaper story about a Charles Pratt who pieced picture "quilts" (they were technically not quilts because they had no backs and were not quilted) of tiny silken squares and won many awards. His masterpiece, The Ninety and Nine pictures the Good Shepherd holding the strayed lamb and so fascinated Emma she wanted to write to him but she had no address.

In 1939 after seeing an announcement in McCALL'S NEEDLECRAFT about Florence Peto, Miss Andres wrote to Mrs. Peto in care of the magazine. The letter was forwarded to Mrs. Peto who answered promptly thereby beginning a fascinating correspondence between the two women which lasted until Mrs. Peto's death in 1970. They met only once when Emma was visiting a sister-in-law in Chester, N. J. and discovered how close she was to her good friend.  Emma remembers it to be about 1956

One day Miss Andres was reading one of the out of town papers she sold in the store and there in the July 21, 1940 PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER Rotogravure section was an article about the long-lost Charles Pratt with pictures and his address. 

"Dad" Pratt shows his technique for sewing

the thousands of squares together to form his mosaic silk quilts

Emma was jubilant and quickly wrote a letter to him. He answered promptly and until his death in April 1941 letters went back and forth. She grew to call him "Dad" and though she knew him only a short time he had a pro- found influence on Emma Andres' life.

Emma says, "He changed my life."

When Emma found Charles Pratt's address she shared it with her friend Florence Peto who was also looking for him because of her long interest in men quilters. Mrs. Peto wrote on Oct 8, 1940, "What a smart girl you are!... When I was in Pennsylvania looking for him I  had nothing  to go by except that Mrs. Carrie Hall had said he was a Pennsylvania man who had  taken  many many prizes."

Mrs. Peto wrote to him and was rewarded with an offer to loan her some of his quilts for her lectures and from that time on she tried to hang his The Ninety and Nine quilt whenever she lectured.

When Emma first saw the picture of Mr. Pratt's picture quilt she wanted to try her own version of the technique. 

The result was her Silhouette or Lady at the Spinning Wheel.  She found a cross stitch pattern for the "Lady" and substituted red squares for the "cross stitch" and added a cat. It was made of 3500 red and white squares and won a Sears merit award in 1933 at the Chicago World's Fair.  

Mrs. Peto noticed the similarity between Emma's Silhouette and Mr. Pratt's and commented on it in a letter dated Oct 8, 1940: "I am much interested in the technique of his (Dad Pratt's) pictured quilt - Penn's Treaty

 Apparently all made in small squares - silhouette style. It reminds me of your own girl, cat, and spinning wheel. The photo is small but it appears to me to be made like that - in squares. I cannot remember having ever seen an old quilt made that way and I am wondering if such silhouette pictures in patchwork isn't modern."

In April 1942 when Mr. Pratt died at the age of 89, his daughter Mrs. Bertha Burd, gave Emma four of his "quilts". Included was the one on which he was working at the time of his death.

It still has his needle in it. She also gave Florence Peto the two which Mr. Pratt had loaned her. So the The Ninety and  Nine  continued  to  go  with  Mrs. Peto  to her many lectures and now belongs to a granddaughter.  Ruth & Naomi is in a private collection in Kentucky.

Emma's "quilts" are permanent residents of her Museum except for brief excursions to her quilt shows. They have all been exhibited in her windows.

On Dec 17, 1940 Mrs. Peto wrote to Emma, (Mr. Pratt) "has written me he would like to have me put on some kind of a show which could exhibit all of his quilts at once I may try to (get the Red Cross or British War Relief) get up an exhibition of these unusual pieces and charge an admission with the proceeds to go to the organization... 1 think that is what our old friend has in mind." She wrote twice more about the idea but apparently never carried it out.

A notation in Emma's handwriting on the back of a photograph places the date of her "first quilt show at Sacred Heart Church, Prescott, Arizona, 1941" 

The quilts were all made by her. On Oct 18, 1941 Mrs. Peto wrote "Watched for your letter to tell me about the Quilt Exhibition and lecture and how it went. Sorry you were disappointed in the attendance but that is the way it goes sometimes ... If you came out of your venture making some money, you can be satisfied; it is quite an ambitious program for you to swing it all alone without the backing of a club

... Perhaps you will have blazed the trail and prepared the public mind (of Prescott) and the next attempt will be better attended and therefore more successful.  It sounds as if you covered a lot of ground in your quilt talk and as I reread your letter your audience certainly got their 50¢ worth."

For her 1942 quilt exhibit, Emma borrowed Charles Pratt's Ninety and Nine from Mrs. Peto. She had always admired it in photographs but she was so thrilled with it when she saw the actual quilt, she took a pattern from it and later reproduced it. Her quilt is made of cotton in 11/2" squares while Mr.  Pratt's is in 3/4" silk squares.

In 1943 to "celebrate" the 2nd anniversary of Mr. Pratt's death, Emma arranged a display of Calvary quilt for an Easter Needlework display and in August of the same year had all of the Pratt quilts she owned were exhibited. On Oct 1, 1943 Mrs. Peto wrote to her friend, "I'm glad you gave another successful party; it often happens that 'voluntary contribution' yields more than a ticket-buying venture."

In the ARIZONA REPUBLIC of April 14, 1946 is an article entitled, "Quilt exhibit due in Prescott". "Miss Emma Andres, nationally known for her needlecraft ability will present her sixth exhibit of quilts tomorrow afternoon in the Sacred Heart Hall. She will lecture concerning the displays at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m.

Each year these needlecraft shows have been a memorial benefit to such organizations as the American Red Cross, Boys' Town, and the Community Hospital.

All photographs courtesy of the Emma Andres Collection

Lynn Evans Miller, Curator

lynnquilt@aol.com

Part 3 tomorrow

    See Emma at her Happiness Museum (1983) (youtube video)

See a small exhibit of Emma's Quilts at the Arizona History Museum

     January 13, 2018 to February 28, 2018

Emma Andres Quilt Collection

949 E. 2nd Street

Tucson, AZ  85719

520-628-5774

Emma Andres Quilts and Her Happiness Museum -- Part 1 of 3

This article is based on in-person interviews in April 1980 and June 1981 and numerous phone calls over the two year period as well as Miss Andres' scrapbooks.

Emma Andres owns the Happiness Museum in Prescott, Ariz. She was a "fine" quiltmaker whose quilts show imagination and originality as well as fine technique. To JOURNAL readers she is better known as the generous friend who loaned us scrapbooks she kept, filled with mementos and correspondence from her friends Florence Peto, Bertha Stenge, Carrie Hall, and "Dad" Pratt.

Written by Joyce Gross 

Published in her Quilters' Journal,  Volume 4, No 2, Summer 1981

Emma Mary Martha Andres was born August 18, 1902 in Prescott, AZ which was ten years before Arizona became a state. One can spell "Emma" using the initials of her names.

Emma’s mother, Anna, was born in Central City, Colorado.

Her father, Matt(hew) was born in Alsace-Lorraine but came to Colorado as a young boy. Her parents were married in Central City and settled down to raise their family. Emma was the middle child with a sister who is now Sister Anna Marcella in the St.

Joseph order in Los Angeles and three brothers who are all dead. Emma's sister was more studious as a child than Emma and Emma enjoyed the choir at Sacred Heart Church.

Matt Andres had a small cigar store in the small town of Central City for many years before they moved to Prescott in 1902 (the year Emma was born). 

Mr. Andres saved 2,000 metal tobacco tags as premiums for a fancy baby carriage for his new baby and Emma still has several of the metal tags in her museum as well as the premium book with a picture of the carriage.

Emma attended catholic school for the first grades and then decided she wanted to attend public school. She is now sorry her parents allowed her to change because she thinks she missed some of the religious education that would have been of benefit to her. 

Mr. Andres wanted to get out of the tobacco business so he took the family to Clearadon on the Texas panhandle and spent two years there before moving back to Prescott.

 Emma went back to public school and the family moved into a small house which is still standing.

Her father built a small building in the back of the lot where he made cigars. During this period she learned to strip the tobacco leaves from the stems and became adept at banding the cigars. Emma says she didn't realize how difficult it was to make.

In 1919 Matt Andres decided business was sufficiently good so that he could open a cigar store. He rented a small store on North Cortez in downtown Prescott where there was more traffic. "Now," Emma says with her dry humor, "You could shoot off a gun up the street after 3 p.m. and not hit a soul!"

Emma recalls there were often one or two other cigar makers in town but they didn't last long. In the back of the small store there is a large room which is now used for storage but was then the production center.

According to Emma, in Mr. Andres' heyday production ran about 7,000 or 8,000 cigars a month. He delivered the cigars every month by horseback or horse and buggy to most of the mines in the area.  He even went to Jerome, now a ghost town, but then a thriving mining town perched on the side of a mountain 5100 feet above sea level and 35 miles distant. He stocked cigars and candy in the big display cases which house the thousands of items in Emma's Happiness Museum.

Emma began working full time in the cigar store after graduating from Prescott High in 1921. When her father retired in 1929 because of ill health she tried to keep the business going. She sold papers and magazines and finally turned to selling religious mementoes.

After seeing a quilt at the County Fair in 1931 she began her first quilt. She chose an applique Tiger Lily kit purchased from an advertisement in Jan 1931 WOMAN'S WORLD.

"The blocks and unbleached muslin for entire top of quilt" was advertised for $3.75. The magazine which was headquartered in Chicago advertised, "72 inch unbleached muslin for the back is available for 45¢ a yard." Emma remembers she later purchased a kit advertised in the May 1932 WOMAN'S WORLD entitled Wild Rose.

Page from Emma's Scrapbook

She did all of her quilting on her lap until 1933 when she purchased a small quilting hoop from Stearns & Foster. The date is verified by a letter carefully taped in a scrapbook from the company thanking her for her order. The metal hoop with an expandable rim allows the quilt to be held firmly. It has the original label on it and occupies a place of honor on top of one of her quilts in the museum. The first quilt she quilted in it was a stuffed quilt, pink on one side and blue on the other. From her first quilt she was determined to use a lot of quilting –a vow she has diligently kept.

All photographs courtesy of the Emma Andres Collection

Lynn Evans Miller, Curator

lynnquilt@aol.com

Part 2 tomorrow

    See Emma at her Happiness Museum (1983) (youtube video)

See a small exhibit of Emma's Quilts at the Arizona History Museum

     January 13, 2018 to February 28, 2018

Emma Andres Quilt Collection

949 E. 2nd Street

Tucson, AZ  85719

520-628-5774