That's Billy

I was about 6, flipping through a family photo album when I came across a snapshot of my mom holding the hand of a little boy.

"Who's that?' I asked, expecting Mom to name one of my brothers, David or Jim.  "That's Billy," she said.  "Oh," said I, and continued flipping through the album.

I was probably in my teens when I learned that Billy was also my brother, my parents first-born son, named after my father William.  Billy sadly had a birth defect that took his life before he was three.

Family lore is that my maternal grandmother made this quilt for her first grandchild:

After Billy died, the quilt resided in a cedar chest in my parents bedroom until the 1970s when my second brother had his first son whom is also named William, so my mother sent them the quilt. I don't think it was ever used after that, just hung on display in their house. The second William isn't interested in keeping it so when I was at my brother's house after his funeral, my sister-in-law, knowing my interest in quilts, offered it to me.

The interesting thing about this quilt is that it is entirely appliqued, even the little squares!  I have learned from friends who know more than I do that it was a Bucilla kit #1148A.  I suspected it was a kit as I can see faint lines for placement of the pieces as well as lines for quilting.

It was just called "Child's Bed Applique Quilt" and appeared in Woman's World Book of Needlework in 1936 (Billy was born in 1937).  You could buy the complete kit for $2.25 in 1936!

Credit to my friends in the Midwest Fabric Study Group for confirming my suspicions.