Version 6.01

02 January 2023

David March © 2014

INTRODUCTION

Disclaimers

It is assumed that the Third Avenue Methodist Church were making the quilt for the Red Cross, and that there were and are no other connections between the organisations.

The Red Cross emblem is a protective symbol used during armed conflicts and its use is protected by international law. We wish to thank the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence and the British Red Cross Society for authorisation to include on the website the images of this quilt bearing the emblem and the words "Red Cross".

We are not affiliated to any Red Cross or Red Crescent Movement nor to any quilt society or group; nor are we affiliated to the Imperial War Museum.

Note: although we refer to a ‘quilt’ throughout, strictly speaking it is a ‘coverlet’ as it comprises only two layers. The Imperial War Museum recorded it as a quilt on acquisition, so we have continued this practice.

David March - May 2014

Quilt made by the Red Cross Club of the Third Avenue Methodist (now United) Church in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada and sent to England at some time after World War I.

This research is dedicated to the Saskatoon needle women and to all the others who made their own considerable contributions to the war effort.

In 2009 my wife who has been researching Canadian Red Cross Quilts heard about those held by the Imperial War Museum in London. When she visited the museum, she discovered that one of the quilts included a reference to the Third Avenue Methodist Church in Saskatoon and the date 1918. It was about double bed size and was covered in hand-written names. Over the following couple of years, I began tracing a few of the people named on the quilt. Pastor G K B Adams and his wife Alice were clearly identifiable in the centre panel.

By March 2011, I had become sufficiently intrigued that I arranged with the curator at the Imperial War Museum to take detailed photographs of all the over 900 names with a view to learning more about its history.

What follows is the results of some four years research which has taken me back to the IWM and across to Saskatoon to see the church named on the quilt.

The research shows the design of the quilt, details about the location where it was made, about the lives of the men and women recorded in its blocks, and what is known about the making of the quilt.