An Elm Creek Quilts Novel (The Elm Creek Quilts) - The Runaway Quilt

My stepmother got me started on this author, and now I can't stop reading her books.. I feel transported to the era, and feel like I am living it w/her.. Will read more of her books !! Keep 'em coming!!!

The Runaway Quilt: An Elm Creek Quilts Novelis well written with characters you care about. In addition, it provides a history lesson about the underground railroad that is anything but boring.

Seventy-something Sylvia Bergstrom has always been proud of her great-grandparents Anneke and Hans, immigrants who began the family's chapter at Elm Creek Manor in rural Pennsylvania. Not only were the two hard-working and determined, but Sylvia knows the role they played in helping slaves reach freedom in Canada.

Then one day, a former quilt camp student returns, wanting to show Sylvia a mysterious quilt that has been in her family for generations. Margaret believes the scene depicted includes Elm Creek Manor and wonders if there is a possible connection between her ancestors and Sylvia's. At first Sylvia is dubious, but as she begins to get caught up in the mystery, she uncovers the diary of Anneke's sister Gerda, who lived with the pair upon first arriving in America.

Almost immediately, Sylvia begins to see that almost nothing is the way she thought it was. As Gerda gives an account of the Bergstroms' early days, she manages to disillusion Sylvia on everything from the way that Anneke and Hans met to the way they acquired Elm Creek Manor.

But worst of all, Sylvia is faced with an even darker possibility. Could her great-grandparents or Gerda even been slave owners?

Gerda goes on to detail the family's encounter with Joanna, a runaway slave pregnant with her master's child. It is Joanna's story and legacy that could change absolutely everything Sylvia has ever known to be true.

Although Chiaverini typically centers her stories on quilting - and there is certainly a lot of that in this book too - a non-quilter will also enjoy her work. I know nothing about the subject myself, but I am an avid reader of historical fiction, so this was definitely an intriguing read for me! I was immensely pleased to learn that many of the 19th-century characters reappear in other books, so we can further follow their stories and not just those of Sylvia and her contemporaries.

The 4th book in this wonderful series, the Runaway Quilt could be read as a stand-alone or as part of the series. Due to this fact, I am not going to summarize the first three books as I don't think it would help any.

Sylvia is the owner of Elm Creek Manor, a large place with grounds that plays host to a Quilter's retreat during the summer. Running the business are her good friends from the Elm Creek Quilter's circle. Since they run the business, she often spends her retirement traveling with her sweetheart Andrew around the country. It is on one of these travels that she is introduced to a quilt that connects to Elm Creek Manor. The only troubling part about this, is the fact that it came from a family who had former slave owners in their past.

From her family's stories Sylvia knows that Elm Creek once served as a station on the underground railroad. Because of this, she is alarmed to think that maybe one of her family had branched off and owned slaves of their own, hence the quilt being made. She goes through the attic and finds three antique quilts and a memoir from a sister-in-law of Anneke, the original mistress of Elm Creek Manor.

The memoir is told by Gerda and explains the trevails and past of Elm Creek Manor. Most specifically it revolves around one escaped slave and the details of her flight. It also shows Anneke's and Gerda's relationship and some of the history of the family. The book takes us part in the memoir and part Sylvia's reaction to it. The more she reads the more she is disappointed in her family and she questions the people she once though they were.

Chiaverini has made this novel very engaging. While its not documented history it does offer an explanation on how signals for the underground railroad were used. Like some of her other quilt books, there are no instructions in this one, but if one cared to look they could probably find the patterns mentioned in this book. Instead it tells the stories of a few specific quilts.

The language in this particular book can get rough. While the cusswords are not spelled out, it is still easy to infer which word is probably meant. Aside from that, the language in the book is descriptive and as easy to read as ever. Chiaverini has a wonderful way of describing quilts so that you can see them in your mind.

A lovely novel. I can't wait to continue on with the series.

The Runaway Quilt
Copyright 2002
329 pages

This book was interesting in that at the start, Margaret Atwood, Sylvia's longtime friend, brings Sylvia a very old quilt trying to figure out the story behind it. Sylvia knows that it has a history by looking at it is a "Birds in the Air," quilt. Frantic for answerss, Sylvia searches the mansion, when in the attic she finds a diary that had been stored away in a trunk. It is that of her great-grandmother Gerda Bergstrom. As Sylvia begins to read, she makes a startling discovery about her ancestors past.

In Gerda's diary is the story of her brother Hans, and Anneke, the woman he rescued in New York when she had no other place to go as she had traveled to the states from Germany. They became married, and having no home to go to, lived in a cabin until a huge home, (what Elm Creek Manor is now), was built then. Anneke was very talented with a needle and thread, capable of doing anything, especially quilts.

At this period of time, slaves were being captured, and some had escaped seeking rest as they were tired from running. Anyone who rescued slaves, and were caught, had to be punished to the full extent of the law.

When a woman, Joanna came knocking on the Bergstrom's door, faint and weak, Gerda pleads with Anneke to take her in though she is a slave on the run northbound. Anneke is afraid, but gives in to help the negro woman, and she ends up staying there. When the slave capturers come around though, she has to hide out. As time moves on, the Bergstroms rescue more slaves which they do by hanging the "Birds in the Air," runaway quilt on the line. Many slaves end up there, and Hans, Anneke, and Gerda go a long time before they are found out.

Sylvia spends the whole summer unravelling this whole history and what becomes of her family in the end. The book travels back and forth from the very distant past to the present.

Jennifer Chiaverini has written the best yet in her now four-part Elm Creek Quilts novel. Sylvia Bergstrom and her friends have experienced the astounding growth of their recently-founded quilter's retreat at beautiful Elm Creek Manor. Sylvia is thrown for a loop, however, when Margaret Alden, a Southern woman, shows her a quilt she believes was made by one of her ancestors, or one of their slaves, in a pattern called Elm Creek. The quilt unmistakeably details her manor, but it throws her understanding of her family history into turmoil. Sylvia had always been lead to believe that the Bergstrom family were participants in the underground railroad - could they really have been slave owners? If not, how could a quilt that so clearly resembles her home have come to be part of the family history of a slaveowning family?
Sylvia decides to look for some family quilts of her own, to help her piece together the mystery. She finds a trunk in her attic filled with what are precious treasures to her - a birds of the air quilt, and a log cabin quilt with a black center square. Family lore had always held that a log cabin with a black center square was a signal to fugitive slaves that they could find safe respite in a home. To Sylvia's surprise, wrapped in the quilts was a diary, that of Gerda Bergstrom, the sister to Hans and Anneke Bergstrom, the founders of the Bergstrom empire. Gerda's diary details her family history -- throwing some shocking loops to Sylvia along the way.
This is a beautifully written book, and very entertaining. The book shows how women's work, even during the Civil War era, was not confined exclusively to the domestic sphere, and how women were able to create family treasures that endured. The Runaway Quilt, with its novelization of Civil War history, is likely to interest a far broader audience than the earlier Elm Creek Quilts novel, while keeping Chiaverini's fans hoping that the series will continue.

Elm Creek Manor, the estate owned by Sylvia Bergstrom Compson, is doing quite well as a quilter's camp and resort. The founding members of the business now see fifty campers per week coming to learn and exchange interests. The business is a success beyond their wildest dreams and Sylvia now has a new lease on life. She makes peace with her remaining in-laws, has more friends than she can count, and even has a guy that wants to marry her.

She's very proud of her family heritage and when she discovers the diary of Gerda Bergstrom, she can't wait to read it. Once she begins, she realizes that Annekee and Hans, Sylvia's ancestors and Gerda's brother and sister in law, are not the paragons of virtue she was led to believe. In fact, one of Annette's actions is so horrible that it affects Sylvia in the present, making her doubt who she is and from whom she came.

If the audience is not interested in genealogy before reading THE RUNAWAY QUILT, they will be after finishing it. The author shows how using primary and secondary resources, a person can learn about their family over five generations ago. Jennifer Chiaverini is a brilliant storyteller who creates characters we've grow to care about especially when they're in the middle of a quandary.

Harriet Klausner

...and it was great to begin with! Jennifer Chiaverini has created a sequence of titles that do indeed share the same setting and some of the same individuals, but in a multidimensional way. The characters take on different roles in each book -- some move into the foreground, and others move back. The resulting stand-alone novels are not cookie-cutter episodes by any means. _The Quilter's Apprentice_ provided the framework and introduced us to Sylvia and Sarah. _Round Robin_ focused on the other members of the Elm Creek Quilters group, whom we had previously met only superficially. _The Cross-Country Quilters_ followed some of the quilt campers to their distant homes and lives and then traced them back to Elm Creek. Now _The Runaway Quilt_ returns the plot to Sylvia, but in a unique historical way. As she reads an old family memoir and looks at the old quilts found with it, she and the readers are left to wonder if we can really ever know who our ancestors were and how they lived. The information unveiled will probably surprise you as much as it does Sylvia. Who would have thought that 21st-century folk could still be affected by the Civil War? Maybe we all ought to go back and read _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ again.

What a great book, beautifully written - or was it pieced? A heartfelt, informative story. I love the histories. I've read the whole series now, but "The Runaway Quilt" has to be the piece de resistance. When I was a child, I lived down the street from a famous historical house in our city, that contained an underground railroad hiding place. I spent hours down in that dank, stone place, reading the placards that told of the drama, and imagining what it must have been like for slaves and protectors alike in that terrible time. Later, I wrote a long poem inspired by the house, that told of a slave's journey. So the book brought back my fascination with that time of courage - and shame, for our country. To those of you who are thinking of reading it: beware! You may not get much sleep, or much done, as it is impossible to put down once you've started!

Janet Chiaverini's series, The Elm Creek Quilts Novels, get better with each book. In this latest one of the series, Sylvia meets a woman named Margaret who has a quilt which her family calls the Elm Creek Quilt. Thinking that they may be related in some way, Sylvia and Margaret look at the quilt and discuss their ancestors, hoping for a connection. When they cannot find one, Sylvia returns to her home on Elm Creek and begins looking in the attic for more clues. She uncovers some quilts and a journal, which she has never seen before. As she reads the journal, many of Sylvia's questions about her ancestors are answered, but some more remain. The story of how quilts may have played a part in the Underground Railroad is a fascinating one, and the journal tells a story which keeps the reader, and Sylvia spellbound to the end. This book is highly recommended!

I have enjoyed all of Chiaverini's Elm Creek series (and have read all that have been published to date), but this is the best. Chiaverini does a remarkable job of piecing a current and very historical story together and ending up with a wonderful patchwork of a book.

Not only do you get a look at the ancestors that Sylvia so relies upon in defining who she is, but at a time in history when much change was afoot. Also, the idea of defining oneself by one's ancestry is introduced. Ancestors are people too, and that is what Sylvia finds out ... for good and ill.

I would also recommend : "Hidden in Plain Sight ..." if you are interested in more about the underground railroad and how slaves may have used quilts as signals.

If you have an interest in quilting and particularly its role in the Civil War, then this book will be an interesting read. I had heard that quilts had hidden meanings for runaway slaves and that was a big part of this story. Jennifer Chiaverini has a great series with Elm Creek and this novel was one of my favorites.

I have to fully agree with Shirley Leib's assessment of this wonderful book. I just finished it, and I too, could not put it down. There are few books written so passionatley that they have reduced me to tears. This book, however, brings the reader right to the heart of its characters. Let's just say, more than one tissue was required in the final chapters of this story.
I am anxious to get to the library on Monday so I can check out another of Jennifer Chiaverini's books. I can think of several people who will be getting this book from me at Christmas!

Jennifer Chiaverini has a unique writing style that appeals to quilters and non-quilters alike. For those of us into quilting, the history she gives her books are soooo appealing. This book was set in the historical time of a quilt mentioned in an earlier book. Although it was not my favorite book in the series, I wouldn't want to miss it. I look forward to the next books from this author. Once you start the books, they are hard to put down; my only advise - don't start the book on a day when you need to accomplish big things, as it just might not happen.

The story weaves pre-Civil War and present. The Underground Railroad gets a connection with Elm Creek and the journal entries from Gerda tell a beautiful story.
Sylvia Compton learns heaps about her family's legacy in this book. This book will move you beyond emotions and stay with you long after you close the book.

After reading the first three novels in the Elm Creek Quilters series, I was hooked. But when I opened "The Runaway Quilt", I wasn't sure that I wanted to read a book that wasn't taking place at quilt camp because I loved the first three so much. Within the first chapter, I had changed my mind and could barely put the book down until I finished it! The book is written so that you don't have to have read the first three books in the series to know what's going on. But when you're finished, you're going to want to go back to read what went on from the beginning! One of the most enjoyable books I've read in a while.

this was definitely ms. chiaverini's best effort so far! i was really interested to find out what sylvia found out about her ancestor's and their past. i have to agree with another reviewer that it seemed unlikely anyone with such a journal would spend all summer reading it. i would have done nothing else until that journal was read! but, hey, this is fiction, so i'll allow it!i have enjoyed reading all jennifer chiaverini's books and am impatiently awaiting the next one/s!!!

I have enjoyed this series. While there are several books they all seem to be a little different in story line. I like that it isn't just drama all over. My favorite books in the series have been the ones that are period stories, where you are looking at life in a different era, finding out about a current characters family history and how it all fits together.

I am thoroughly enjoying the reading all Chiaverini's Elm Creek Quilt novels. I am on the fifth novel now and so far The Runaway Quilt, #4, is without a doubt her best! Fast paced, with historically correct data used throughout related to the possible use of underground railroad quilts. Very believable and enlightening. A great read. Couldn't put it down!

It was a wonderful story line involving the healing of bitterness of Silvia and her family history and the underground railroad. Although it never resolves the issues of why certain quilts were used or if they were used for the underground railroad, it left the reader satisfied with the conclusion. A worthwhile read especially if you've read her other books.