Tonia Poole finished sewing her second-ever quilt.  It was a Quilt of Valor, a handmade quilt to be awarded to a veteran or service member who has been touched by war.  She signed it, filled out the Quilt of Valor patch she had sewn on the back of it, and slid it into the pillowcase that she had sewn to go along with it.  

The next day, April 15, 2012, Tonia and her husband Shawn delivered the quilt to Eury Wyatt Henderson and his wife Barbara at their Parkview Manor home in Wellman, since the couple was unable to attend the official awarding of quilts at the Goodwin Dining Center a few blocks away.

On April 15, 2023, exactly 11 years later, Tonia found herself at Duwa’s Auction in Wellman, unexpectedly reunited with that same quilt.

“I was there for most of Saturday,” Tonia said.  “After lunch, I’d been there for a while, and the fabric just caught my eye.  I don’t know how I didn’t see it sooner.  I was like, ‘Oh, I recognize that fabric.  That’s even a familiar pattern.’  Lo and behold, I opened it up, and sure enough, that was my quilt.  It hadn’t sold yet.  I hadn’t missed it.”

A decade ago the Hendersons were in their mid 80s.  During World War II, Junior, as Eury was called, was enlisted in the Navy.  He spent years on a US Navy Destroyer escort in the Pacific, patrolling the waters between Pearl Harbor and Japan.  When the war ended, he married Barbara and they lived the rest of their lives in Wellman.  By the time Barbara passed in 2014, they had been married for 67 years.

They didn’t have children or close next of kin, so Tonia had always wondered what would happen to the quilt when they passed.  She surely didn’t expect it to end up back in her own hands, but she is grateful that it did.

The quilt had always been special to Tonia’s husband.  

“This has always been my favorite quilt that Tonia ever made and when she said it was at the auction I was as excited as she was to get it back,” Shawn posted on Facebook.

When Tonia messaged him about finding the quilt at auction, he told her, “I don’t care what it costs to get it.  We’re getting that quilt.”

Shawn himself was an Army veteran, having joined the Army Reserve after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.  He spent a year deployed in Afghanistan when the couple were just newlyweds.  

“He had a lot of respect for the [Quilts of Valor] mission and where [the quilt] was going and such,” Tonia explained.

Shawn had a role in choosing the fabrics for the Quilt of Valor, which Tonia purchased from Stitch N Sew Cottage, a business previously owned by her mother, and earlier, her grandparents.

“My husband helped pick them out because he loves the Stonehenge and he liked the Constitution,” Tonia said.  “He loved this fabric.  After I made this, he wanted his own [quilt].”

Tonia fondly remembers making the quilt in the basement of the Wellman Methodist Church, where she and her sister spent time alongside other members of a sewing group.  It took her about six months to complete.

She doesn’t remember exactly who organized the giving of Quilts of Valor, but she suspects it was one of the quilters from a quilt group she was a part of at the time.

The quilt has a unique design feature that was also Shawn’s idea: “My husband had mentioned, ‘Oh, it’d be really cool if you could quilt it like an American flag.’”  

Tonia asked family friend Clara Bontrager if she could machine quilt stars and stripes, and lo and behold, the back of the quilt shows that distinctive flag pattern stitched on white fabric.

How the Quilt of Valor ended up at Duwa’s Auction remains a mystery for now.  Tonia made inquiries, but it is unclear if there was a lot of goods from the Hendersons that went directly to the auction house, or if Parkview Manor had assorted items left behind by residents that ended up there.

She did, however, discover that Junior Henderson moved to the nursing home at Parkview this January, and that he remains there now.  She went to visit, but he was unable to discuss the quilt with her.

Although the exact mechanism by which the quilt ended up back in the hands of the woman who created it is mysterious, the future of the quilt is less so.  For the last decade it has comforted one veteran; now it will comfort another.

“I don’t think Shawn is going to let it go anywhere,” Tonia said.  “This is very special to Shawn.  I don’t think he needs a Quilt of Valor because he is going to claim this one.”

To learn more about Quilts of Valor, visit qovf.org.