Quilting in Palestine

Last weekend was a beautiful fall weekend. On Friday, I drove out to Palestine, Ohio, right near the Indiana border. Palestine is a small rural community which appears to be dwindling away.

One of the cool things was this water pump, still sitting at the town crossroads. Here, you could draw water to water your horse, dog or whatever. Although cracked, the concrete trough was still there.

I think the trough probably dates to the 1920s or just before World War II. It seems that the town had some prosperity then. The retreat was held in this brick school, which was once the high school. Built in 1923, it was abandoned some years ago when they consolidated the school districts out there. Now, there is another school where the children from this tiny community go to with children from other small towns in the surrounding area.


One of the local churches, or perhaps it was a group, obtained the building and converted it to a retreat center for all Christian groups to use as an off site meeting place and retreat center. On weekends other Christian groups can rent it overnight.

Last year, the Batty Binder's quilt group of Troy rented it and they had so much fun, they reserved it for this year as well. One of the nice things is that you don't have to bring your own bedding and they do all the cooking and cleaning. In essence, all you need to do is...quilt.


I didn't go last year because I was in too much pain from a broken pelvis. I did go this year. Lots of people got terrific amounts done. Here, you can see Debbie Black's terrific start on her circle quilt, a present for her daughter who is a high school senior this year. She did it from a pattern in a quilting magazine, but some of our co-horts made the suggestion that she add the green triangles, something not in the original pattern. I think that the green triangles on the white blocks makes the quilt far more interesting.




Here you can see the gymnasium taken over by all 22 of us quilting away. I didn't get much done...I did paint some faces on some small dolls for one of the ladies. I also took a walk exploring and taking lots of pictures, particularly of the decaying barn at the top of the page. The barn was quite large, and had had a small house, built around 1860 moved and attached to the barn. I presume that the house was moved to make room for a larger, more prestigious dwelling. I could see the rise and the evergreens which had been planted around where the new house had been. The small one was now falling into ruins and had been put there quite some time earlier...I'm guessing at about the 1890s or 1900. The second house, however is long gone.