PATCHWORK
Quilt barn trails started as an Adams County idea and grew into a national trend STORY BY EMMA STEFANICK | PHOTOS BY EMMA STEFANICK AND PROVIDED BY JULIANNA DONOFRIO
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hen Donna Sue Groves and her mother Maxine reflection upon farm life. Many of these historic patt moved to an Adams County farm in 1989, have newer, similar variations, such as Shoo Fly’s close an old Mail Pouch Tobacco barn sat on the relative, Hole in the Barn Door. property of their new home. While no one really knows where the name Shoo Fly Groves thought it was the ugliest barn she had ever comes from, it is suspected to relate back to the wild plant seen. That day, Groves made a promise to her mother, an calledcloverbroom,ormorecommonly,shoo-fly. avid quilter, that she would paint a quilt square on their According to Elaine Laerty, original owner of the barn. Little did she know that her idea would become a Shoo Fly quilt square, Maxine Groves played a huge role in national phenomenon. designingsquares for thequilttrail. Laertydescrib The first barn quilt,Ohio theStar, was hung at Lewis Groves had a three-ring binder with her favorite quilt square Mountain Herbs in 2001 during an annual festival, now patterns that she had hand-drawn and colored sorted into called the Olde Thyme Herb Fair. Donna Sue, who was individual plastic sleeves. workingasasouthernfieldrepresentativefortheOhio Groves Arts wasflippingthroughandsaid,“Nowthisone’s Council at the time, helped develop the first quilt called square. Shoo Fly.” The square was dedicated to Maxine Groves and became Laertythoughtbacktothefirsttimeshetookatr thefirstof20stopsontheAdam’sCountydrivingtrail, Amish the country with her parents. “That was the first ti Clothesline of Quilts. any of us had ever eaten shoo fly pie, so that remained According to Tom Cross, executive director of the with me, and I said I wanted that one.” Adams County Travel and Visitors Bureau, each barn on the After the dedication of the Ohio Star in 2001, the Groves original trail has a dierent quilt square pattern family had honoring people eagerly seeking them out to become a the county’s heritage, hung on a side that can be viewed part of the barn quilt movement. According to Tom Cross, from the road. not a day went by where Donna Groves was not answering “These 20 are old, traditional quilt patterns,” says Cross. questions about it. “A lot of these patterns came over from England when the As people drove across the county, be it for reason or by settlers came in, and they have history written all over them.” accident, they saw barn quilts that would stick with them in Many patterns, including Shoo Fly, originated in the their memory for years to come. Barn quilt trails then began 1800s, becoming popular patterns for their simplicity and to pop up sporadically in new locations.
ABOVE: Modern-day quilt pattern adorns a local family’s barn. 16 | WINTER/SPRING 2022
