Review of The 1929 Kelsey Quilter

[Brayan Uribe]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "The 1929 Kelsey Quilter" by Beverly Burnett Hamberlin.]

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4 out of 5 stars

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The 1929 Kelsey Quilters by Beverly Burnett Hamberlin was a sweet read. I think I don’t have any other way to describe it. In the book, we get the author’s recollections of her investigation into her family genealogy and how she managed to connect several families through a quilt.

After one of her relatives passed away, the author was given a quilt that the relative had kept in a closet for several years. The quilt (and some ‘’orphan quilts’’ that were not joined to the main quilt) had names on it of the women who had made them several years before in 1929, and the author set out to find out who these women were and how they all related to a colony of early members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or Mormons.

The colony was in Kelsey, Texas (now considered a ghost town), and the author described in the book all the hardships these women and their families went through, the persecution early members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints suffered, the rejection of family members who were not in the same religion, and how Kelsey became a small, safe haven for the members of the Church who didn’t have a place to practice their religion safely and openly, thus becoming an example of faith and resilience.

I’m giving the book 4 out of 5 stars. I like how the book was easy to read and how the author was clearly passionate about genealogy and this part of the history of her Church. I also like the respect the author showed to her ancestors and how she can relate to them and how they are an important part of her own history. I’m taking away a star because I don’t feel particularly good about how the last third of the book was just diary entries from one of the members of the Church of that time. While I understand this might be interesting for some people because it was the day-to-day of one of the members of the Church, I don’t think it added anything of great value to the core center of the book, and it became a bit tiresome to read.

But overall, I would recommend the book to anyone who wants to learn a little bit of the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and not just to members of that Church, since the author doesn’t try to convert you or sell you her religion, so anyone can read it.

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The 1929 Kelsey Quilter
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