Will you help us repatriate 40 quilts to Canada that are an important part of our nation’s living history?

During the Second World War, Canadian women voluntarily made over 400,000 quilts and sent them to Britain and European countries for victims of the blitz, refugees, orphans, the wounded, land girls and soldiers. Many of these quilts were deeply treasured by the recipients; though they had no idea who made them, they knew that someone cared for them in a desperate time.

Since 2005, the Canadian Red Cross Quilt Research Group (CRCQRG) in England has been collecting and researching the tiny number of these quilts that have survived into the 21st century. British institutions hold some of these quilts in their collections. Now, we hope that forty of these quilts will be able to “travel home”.

The CRCQRG was founded by three women, as a subgroup of the Quilters' Guild of the British Isles, specifically to rescue these quilts, in whatever condition they were found. One of these women, Dr. Anna Mansi, died in 2016. Her husband Anthony Mansi (Tony) has generously offered to donate the bulk of the quilts they collected together to be gifted to a museum in Canada as a whole collection. He has titled the collection “Comfort from Kindness – ‘In Her Name’ – The Anna Mansi WWII CRCQ Collection”.

Most of these quilts were donated to Anna and Tony over the last 20 years at no cost to them, and Tony is generously donating those to Canada. On several occasions, Anna and Tony purchased quilts for the collection, and for these we have committed to reimbursing his costs. The funds raised through this initiative will also cover shipping costs of returning the quilts to Canada and ensure their proper storage and conservation until a permanent home for the collection is secured. We are also working to record and archive the incredible stories that accompany the quilts.

This fundraising is being initiated by Joanna Dermenjian and Heather Smith, two Canadian scholars who are researching the voluntary textile production and quilt-making by Canadian women on the home front in the First and Second World Wars. The fundraising initiative to support the return of this quilt collection is being guided by Dr. Lisa Binkley, Associate Professor of History at Dalhousie University and Director of the Material Culture Collective.

For more information, visit Canadian Wartime Quilts

Listen: Haptic and Hue podcast Canada's Forgotten Quilts

Watch: Karen’s Quilt Circle – Let's Talk About Wartime Quilting