Medford, Oregon (December 15, 2021)—Historian and Quilt maker Sue Waldron presents the Windows in Time lecture “Remembering When the Trains Came: A Quilter’s View” on Wednesday, January 5, 2022 from 12 Noon–1:00 p.m. via the Zoom video conferencing app. All are welcome to attend this free lecture; registration is required.
Waldron will share two history-themed quilts from the Rogue Valley Genealogical Society’s quilt collection. The quilts were made by the Jacksonville Museum Quilters over thirty years ago to remember the 100th anniversary of the arrival of the Oregon & California railroad in the Rogue Valley.
The Jacksonville Museum Quilters were founded in 1976 by Dora Scheidecker, who was quoted as saying that their goal was to help the Jacksonville Museum become “the best in the state—not only the biggest, but the best.” Each year, the quilters would make a new quilt with a local history theme: the Chinese, Hawaiians, Native Americans, the Oregon Trail, the Applegate Trail, and the arrival of the railroad.
Working with local artist Carl Strand, the quilters created the Medford Centennial quilt with its dramatic forward steaming engine. The next year they re-created, in fabric, historic photographs showing the construction of the railroad from Ashland over the Siskiyou mountains to connect Oregon and California.
Sue Waldron worked for the Southern Oregon Historical Society in the 1980s and 90s, and then retired from the Jackson County Watermaster’s Office after eighteen years. During her time with the Historical Society, she was the research-writer for the Exhibits Department and contributed frequently to the Table Rock Sentinel. Now Waldron is a volunteer with the Rogue Valley Genealogical Society, where she helps share the rich heritage of their quilt collection and participates in the documentation of other Southern Oregon quilts.
Program registration can be found at jcls.libcal.com/calendar/jcls_event/WIT-Jan-2022. A recording of the program will later be made available on the Jackson County Library Services YouTube channel; subscribe at youtube.com/c/JCLSBeyond.
The monthly Windows in Time lunchtime lectures feature well-known writers and historians and bring alive the people, values, and events that shaped our Southern Oregon heritage. Lectures are jointly sponsored by the Southern Oregon Historical Society and Jackson County Library Services. For more information, please contact the Southern Oregon Historical Society at (541) 773-6536 or sohs.org or Jackson County Library Services at 541-774-8679 or jcls.org.