The Runaway Quilt (Elm Creek Quilts Series #4) (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "When her sister, Claudia, died childless at the age of seventy-seven, Sylvia Bergstrom Compson became the last living descendant of Hans and Anneke Bergstrom and..." (more)
Key Phrases: Elm Creek Farm, Creek's Crossing, Elm Creek Manor (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Chiaverini's fourth offering in her Elm Creek Quilts series weaves a modern-day family mystery around a pre-Civil War tale of bravery, deception and the Underground Railroad. Sylvia Bergstrom Compson, proprietress of Elm Creek Quilts and a quilter's retreat, is the sole heir and last descendant of Anneke and Hans Bergstrom, German immigrants who settled in Creek's Crossing, Pa., after Hans won Elm Creek Farm in a horse race. Or is Sylvia the only one left? After a speaking engagement at a quilter's guild in South Carolina, a woman named Margaret Alden shows Sylvia a family heirloom quilt with a map of Elm Creek Manor recreated in the stitches. Do Margaret and Sylvia share a distant relative (heretofore unknown to Sylvia) who moved to South Carolina? Or did a slave of one of Margaret's ancestors make it? This thought disturbs Sylvia deeply. She believes her forebears were staunch abolitionists who were active in the Underground Railroad, aiding escaping slaves in their journeys to Canada and freedom by using quilts as maps pointing the route to safe houses. A journal written by Hans's sister Gerda and discovered in an attic trunk reveals the family secrets and the story of Joanna, a pregnant runaway who is sheltered from slave catchers by the Bergstroms and who almost becomes their undoing. Readers unfamiliar with the series may be confused trying to keep the peripheral contemporary characters straight, but the story of Anneke, Hans and Gerda Bergstrom is compelling enough to warrant sticking with Sylvia as she ferrets out the true history of Elm Creek Farm. Chiaverini manages to impart a healthy dollop of history in a folksy style, while raising moral questions in a suspenseful narrative.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

The latest in the Elm Creek Quilt series explores the lore surrounding the use of quilts to signal runaway slaves traveling the Underground Railroad. Sylvia Compson, owner of Elm Creek Farm and the last of the Bergstrom family line, is intrigued when a quilting student shows her a quilt that complicates the family legend of her ancestors' involvement in the Underground Railroad. She finds old quilts hidden away in the attic, accompanied by a memoir written by Gerda, the spinster sister of the Bergstrom patriarch. The quilts and the memoir raise questions about the Bergstrom family's history that trouble and intrigue Sylvia. Chiaverini switches between passages in Gerda's memoir and current-day events at Elm Creek Farm, including genealogical and historical research, taking the reader back and forth between the present and the past to reveal a long-forgotten family secret. Fans of the three previous Elm Creek Quilts novels will enjoy this latest installment. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Edition edition (April 2, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743222261
• ISBN-13: 978-0743222266
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #398,207 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

• This is item 4 in The Elm Creek Quilts Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ran away with my time, April 17, 2002

By	shirley lieb (Chicago, Illinois United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This was truly a book that I could not put down. It is the first of the Elm Creek books that I read and now I have purchased the rest to enjoy. The flow of the story was wonderful. And I easily moved between the days of Gerda and the modern day Sylvia. It is at once a mystery and a tale of adventure and romance.

Through Ms. Chiaverini's skillful writing, we feel equally at home in either the 19th or 21th centuries. So skillful and artistic are her desceiptions, that we, the readers are front and center with our two leading ladies at all times.

The cast of extras, from Hans and Andrew to Dorothea and Grace, all add to the rich tapestry that makes up this story.

Whether you are a quilter or not, this book puts us in touch with the past and reminds us to look back and see the fiber from which we are all made. If you are not a quilter, it certainly is an inspiration to try it out as a hobby

We are never quite sure of the answer to the questions in Sylvia's mind, but that does not matter. What we do know however, is that in her past were brave and daring people who stood for what was right in a time when so much was wrong.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Yet of the Series!, May 20, 2002

By	Elaine S. Reitz (Coralville, Iowa United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is by far the best of the series! Each story in the Quilt series is better than the one before. This is a completely satisfying story: part mystery, part history lesson, and part geneology study.
After a speaking engagement, Sylvia is approached by one of the attendees. Margaret Alden has an old family quilt that has always been called The Elm Creek quilt, and she wants to share her information with Sylvia. This sparks Sylvia's curiosity, and she sets out to find the old quilts her Aunt Lucinda used to tell her about, quilts that were used as signals on the Underground Railroad.
What Sylvia finds is so much more. She finds a journal written by Gerda, Hans' sister, the founders of the Bergstrom legacy. In the memoir, Sylvia finds more questions than answers. In the journal, Gerda reveals family secrets, and she introduces Sylvia to someone she never knew existed: a pregnant runaway named Joanna, who the Bergstroms hide from slave catchers and who is almost their undoing.
Sylvia is confronted with the uncertainty of her own family history, and is left with a question that is never answered by Gerda's journal. With the help of her fellow Elm Creek Quilters, as well as descendants of Gerda's closest friends, Sylvia is able to face these uncertainties and reaffirm her moral center.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stitching Together a Family's History, April 10, 2002

By	K. Fromal "kristinof" (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.