Ann Adeline Orr Parks: Family in the Fabric Business

One of four chintz applique quilts attributed to

 Ann Adeline Orr Parks (1803-1835) of Charlotte, 

documented in the North Carolina project

We have many impressive collections of a body of work by quiltmakers working in the past century such as Rose Kretsinger, Anna Williams and Bertha Stenge, but groups of quilts by 19th-century quiltmaker are rare. We can look to state and regional quilt projects for family collections.

Ellen Fickling Eanes in the North Carolina project pictured four quilts by Ann Adeline Orr Parks of Charlotte, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Adeline Parks (she may have been called by her middle name) was born November 28, 1803 in Mallard Creek, Mecklenberg County in the western part of the state and lived her life in that county. She married David Parks of Charlotte on February 6, 1827 when she was 23.

David Parks is among the Merchants listed in an 1844 Charlotte directory.

See the last post on quilts in drygoods dealers' family quilts:

https://womensworkquilts.blogspot.com/2018/12/family-in-dry-goods-business.html

Note the beautiful striped chintz for the final border with butted

rather than mitered corners.

The Parks quilts use a variety of chintz-scale prints, some of them quite popular with quiltmakers in the 1820-1850 period. Each central focus is a furnishing panel, often with these panels trimmed in various ways around the edges.

The fruit panel at the center of this one is framed with strips cut

from a pillar and basket print that was quite the rage at the time.

Variations on that print

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2017/08/a-ridiculously-popular-pillar-print.html

Brunk Auctions

Chintz quilt attributed to "Grandmother Kendall,"

 Mecklenburg County NC with the same print in its dark borders, dated 1833

Even more popular was the palm tree and pheasant print, which is cut up and appliqued in the corners of the Parks quilt with an unusual scalloped edge. Note also another early-to-mid-19th century stripe that would have worked better had the corners been mitered.

Read more about the palm tree print:

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2018/06/pheasant-palm-chintz-4-dating-quilts.html

Tryon Street about 1910, where David Parks's store and later 

Parks & Hutchinson was located

The Parkses were prosperous. We can see it in the quilts and city records. David Parks moved from being a drygoods merchant to making investments in railroads and banks. He was active in Democratic and later Confederate politics, the Presbyterian Church and was mayor of the city in the late 1850s, but much of this was after Ann Adeline died.

The David Parks Building was at 24 Tryon Street. Here's Tryon mid-century.

They are recorded as having only one child, Mary Adeline born in February, 1835. Ann Adeline died on September 10th that year at the age of 32, leaving an infant and a 38-year-old husband who soon married again.

David's second wife was widow Ann Chambers Locke Beyers, wed on July 11, 1837. The second Ann Parks raised Mary Adeline and must have emphasized the importance of these quilts, which were handed down to Mary Adeline's descendants.

Mary Adeline married Ebenezer Nye Hutchinson and left one child David Parks Hutchinson, born in 1853, when she died young at 23 in 1858. Ann Adelaide's grandson known as Parks Hutchinson was also raised by a stepmother. He lived to be 69, dying in 1922. Family quilts, treated with reverence, were a legacy from a mother and grandmother never known.

Ann Adeline's husband's obituary. He'd been Charlotte's oldest citizen at the time.

David Parks and both his Anns are buried in Elmwood cemetery. At the Parks monument

a stone for David Parks and off to the corner of the photo A.A. (for Ann Adelaide?)

When Ellen Fickling Eanes interviewed a family member almost thirty years ago she was told:

"It cannot be questioned that in her short adult life Adeline Orr Parks made all of these quilts. Ann Byers Parks, David Parks's second wife, who had the quilts in her possession for fifty three years, always attributed them to Adeline, leaving no doubt about the maker. Adeline's daughter, Mary Adeline, died at twenty-three and Ann raised her child, David Parks Hutchinson. Through Ann's bequest the quilts have come down to Adeline's descendants through his family."

So how did Ann Adeline come to make so many quilts? Perhaps her position as wife of a fabric merchant gave her access to much expensive material from England and much leisure time (the Parks family owned slaves). Or perhaps the quilts were good marketing---showing what could be done with store merchandise. One can also imagine a scenario in which one of the luxuries you could buy at David Parks's store was a chintz quilt, stitched by seamstresses (free or slave) under Ann Adeline's direction. Perhaps these four quilts were unsold merchandise.

Chintz quilts must have been the fashion in Charlotte in the early 1830s.

Charlotte's Mint Museum owns a chintz panel quilt from

 another prosperous family, the Caldwells. This one is signed

Sally Roxana Caldwell and dated 1833 on the reverse. The borders

have mitered corners.

Born about 1813, Sally Roxana, wife of a physician, was a little younger than Ann Adeline, but of her generation with children of similar age. They probably moved in the same social and political  circles in a town of 20,000 people. See a post on the Caldwell family and note that David Parks replaced Dr. P.C. Caldwell as Charlotte's delegate to the Secession Convention at the beginning of the Civil War.

http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-caldwells-hard-shell-secessionists.html

While looking through the Quilt Index I noticed the panel chintz quilt on the left in the collection of the DAR Museum, thought to have gone from South Carolina to Mississippi to the museum.

Ann Adeline's quilt uses the same floral fabric in the final border adjacent to a neatly cut stripe. A mitered corner would have finished these quilts off nicely, but both have the awkward butted corners usually seen towards the end of the 19th century. Was the same hand directing the look of the borders?

This caused me to look closer at Ann Adeline's construction. All four of her quilts have butted corners in the final borders. And notice the odd edging---scallops! and one with round corners---visual evidence of  the same designer's hand.

Did someone add late-19th century borders to Ann Adeline's centers? This is doubtful as the identifiable border chintzes are mid-century prints. It just may be that A.A. thought this was a fine finish (and it does take a little less yardage.)

In our blog about chintz panels we included two of Ann Adeline's with this floral panel seen often in Carolina quilts. Note the similarities between the center of hers and the top below it in the collection of Historic Columbia (SC). Parts are cut in a clever way to make the most of center bouquet, frame and four corners.

Uncut panel from the Winterthur Museum collection.

See our panel blog post:
https://chintzpanelquilt.blogspot.com/2018/12/panel-2-round-bouquet-in-feather-scroll.html