In researching Elizabeth Garraux’s story, I sent an email to a person who had posted several pieces of information on Ancestry.com in a Garraux family tree. That chance email to a generic login ended up getting a response from Elizabeth’s great-great granddaughter, also named Elizabeth. She had been actively researching the family and fleshing out the family tree.
At the time that I contacted Elizabeth Williams, she also happened to be selling the home of her mother (Elizabeth’s great granddaughter), who had just passed away. Amazingly, the mother’s home was just 20 minutes or so from my house.
Great-great granddaughter Elizabeth, invited me to meet her there to see photographs and memorabilia saved from Elizabeth and Frederick’s lives that had been passed on in the family.
Elizabeth and her brother, Tommy, were figuring out what to do with some of the items in the home before it could be sold. Meeting them at the house in Greer was an amazing experience. The family had done a spectacular job of salvaging and preserving so much from the 1800s.
Frederick was a gifted wood crafter and cabinet maker, and they had saved several pieces of furniture that he had made, as well as doors, a newel post, railing and a spectacular fireplace mantel that had been built into the home.
After we spent time going through the photos and keepsakes and talking about the development of the book, Elizabeth and I felt an immediate kinship. There is no way to put your finger on what causes some people to immediately “click,” but we sure did.
Included in the items the family had saved were two beautiful quilts, one stitched by great-great grandmother Elizabeth, the focus of my book, and the other, by her daughters, who gave it to their mother as a gift. I burst into tears when Elizabeth later inquired if I would want to have the quilts, and of course told her I would be honored to have them.
The magnificent quilt that Elizabeth made, started in the 1860s in Switzerland and finished in America, now hangs in our living room (pictured below). The other quilt, dated 1898 that her daughters stitched, is on a quilt rack in our bedroom.
When I look at the quilts and realize when those stitches were made — likely by candle or lantern light, well more than 100 years ago — the honor of having them still brings tears to my eyes.
The feeling of being connected to the past and to Elizabeth’s story has become a very precious part of my life for which I will forever be grateful.
[A nice update: The home ended up being purchased by Tommy’s daughter and son-in-law, so all of the items from the original homestead that were built into the house in Greer remain in the family — four generations later!]
