The way Gwen McGrath remembers it, “everybody” was making quilts in 1976.
It was America’s bicentennial, the 200th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. McGrath, then a teacher at Maple Street Elementary in Hopkinton, joined the trend with her fourth-grade class.
“I knew some of the women in this town had made quilts, and I said ‘Why can’t my students make a quilt?’ We’re studying colonial America and they are enthusiastic about that period,” she said.
As the nation celebrates its semiquincentennial birthday, the quilt marks its 50th, and in a new setting. For years, McGrath kept the project stored carefully in her closet. Now, she has donated it to the Hopkinton Historical Society, and it will be on display at the Hopkinton Town Library through the end of July.
McGrath, then known to her students as Mrs. Peters, had each of her 22 students design a 16-inch square for the quilt based on historical events, places and characters. The designs were sewn by volunteers and McGrath herself.
One student, Melissa Jones, sewed her own square. The Bicentennial “was a big deal at the time,” she said. A lover of horses, she chose the Conestoga Wagon for her design.
Other scenes on the quilt included Independence Hall, the Old Man on the Mountain, the Mayflower and Uncle Sam. In the center shone the bicentennial star logo, sewn by McGrath.
“We had Ben Franklin flying the kite, and Betsy Ross making the flag and, you know, just what they thought was important,” said McGrath.
The project widened with the help teachers’ aids, mothers, neighbors and, in one case, a student’s grandmother. The group would meet on Fridays once their work was done to make progress on the quilt. Once the squares were sewn, McGrath put them all together with the backing to complete the piece.
After the quilt was finished, the students auctioned it off to fund a class trip to Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts. McGrath’s neighbor won the quilt at auction and eventually returned it to the teacher.
“She said, ‘I’d like you to have it,’ and that’s how it came into my possession,” McGrath said. “So I wrapped it up, and it’s been in the closet for 50 years.”
McGrath retired from Maple Street Elementary in 1996 after teaching for more than 20 years at the school.
“I look back on my life and I think there isn’t anything I would’ve liked better to have done,” she said.
A reception welcoming the quilt will be held at the Hopkinton Town Library on Tuesday, July 14, at 5 p.m. McGrath and students who worked on the quilt will be in attendance.
At the end of the month, the quilt will be returned to the Hopkinton Historical Society, where it will be on display as part of the ongoing “Ordinary People, Extraordinary Times: Hopkinton and the American Revolution” exhibit running through December.
