MOORESTOWN, N.J. (KYW Newsradio) — Starting Friday, quilts full of memories and inscriptions from 19th-century history to 21st-century Phillies heroes will be on display at the Historical Society of Moorestown.
The inscribed patches on the quilts tell stories of courage and innovation through the signatures of more than 200 people, highlighting the lives and impact of groups and individuals like Moorestown Quakers who taught farmers at Mt. Vernon how to work the land without slave labor.
Linda Vizi, a retired Philly FBI agent and the vice president of the Historical Society of Moorestown’s Board of Trustees, feels each signature evokes a memory.
“We decided rather than look at the design of the quilts and the colors of the quilts – which are all quite exceptional – to look at the names on the quilts and find out who the people were,” Vizi said.
Mary Lippincott, who ran a local boarding school but left correspondence describing an 1861 ferry explosion on the Delaware River, is also featured on the quilt.
Vizi said that Lippincott wrote letters that have aided in the exhibition's ability to chronicle important historical events that happened in Philadelphia and on the East Coast.
“It started with her signature and who she was,” Vizi said.
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While the exhibit will display many historically based findings, it will also include a quilt with autographs from former Philadelphia Phillies Chase Utley, Bob Boone, and Johnny Callison.
“For years, I’ve been collecting blocks signed by the Phillies,” Vizi said. “This is the year it was time to put the blocks together.”
Vizi notes that if Bryce Harper reads this, a few squares on her quilt remain unsigned.
The exhibition opens at Moorestown’s Smith-Cadbury Mansion on Friday.