Front Door Gallery featuring small but varied and colorful collection of historic quilts and comforters
The latest exhibit in the Front Door Gallery at the Finney County Historical Museum will open officially on April 3, entitled “The Story of the Quilt.”
The display, which is already in place, features a small group of quilts and comforters, two dating back nearly 100 years or more and others completed in later decades. One of the works is borrowed and the others were drawn from the museum’s collection, but each was chosen because of the story of its creation.
The 90-inch by 90-inch borrowed quilt, for example, was finished only recently by Garden City resident Mary Pendergraft, but the blocks were created nearly a half-century ago by the grandmother of Pendergraft’s husband, Kent. One of the other pieces dates to a U.S. Bicentennial project by the Extension Homemaker Units of Finney County in 1976, and another of the seven being shown has been linked to Mormon leader Brigham Young, who lived from 1801 to 1877.
The Front Door Gallery is located just inside in the museum’s main display hall, and admission is free. The location is 403 S. Fourth in Garden City’s Finnup Park, adjacent to Lee Richardson Zoo’s pedestrian gate at the Ben Grimsley arches. The eight by 14-foot gallery hosts approximately six displays and collections each year.
“The Story of the Quilt,” also incorporates facts, figures and historical information about the craft of quilting. It follows “Be Prepared,” an exhibit that focused in the 71-year history of the Santa Fe Trail Council of the Boys Scouts of America.
Museum admission is free and current exhibit hours run from 1 to 5 p.m. seven days weekly. Visitors may see various other long-term and changing exhibits too, ranging from “My Place in Time,” a 19th Century kitchen, “Take Stock in Finney County,” “Spirit of the Plains” and “Garden City Then and Now” to “Celebrate Kansas” and “Buffalo Jones, Last of the Plainsmen.” The museum gift shop is open simultaneously with the exhibits.
Information is available at 620-272-3664 and museum office hours run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays.
