About 2 years ago, I made this entry in my journal:
Tuesday 1 September 2020, Abidjan
12:17 p.m. There has been a miracle. I just checked my FamilySearch messages and found this:
From Janice Toombs Twede 2:15 PM
Please let me know who in your family would like the quilt tops that I have. Since you are a direct decendent of Jane, your family should have them. I am too old now to do much with them. I will keep the squares that are not in a quilt because I want to make a table runner for each one of my girls. Just let me know.
Janice Toombs Twede – My Grandmother was Franklin Moore’s daughter so that would make Jane her Gr. Aunt.
my email is tbird3@juno.com
from Janice Twede
I’ve responded to her today with this:
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Hi Janice!
Thank you for contacting me about the quilt tops from Jane Isabella Barker. You have found the right descendant!! I am an avid quilter and nothing makes me happier. I would be THRILLED to have the quilt tops and I would treasure them and keep them safe in the family! Oh my, I am so happy you found me!
My address is
Ann Lewis
24 West 500 South
Orem UT 84058
My email is annlewis@byu.net
I would be happy to pay for the postage or shipping. Please let me know.
I am SO HAPPY to hear from you!!!
Can you please tell me anything you know about the quilts? Who were they given to? How did you end up with them? Where or when were they made? –anything you can think of would be of interest to me as I document the quilts for her posterity.
And please tell me more about yourself—I’d love to get to know you better. I’d also love to know more about your parents and your grandparents. I love family history and I love learning about my family. I feel like the angels have just put me in your path. Thank you so very very much!
Ann Lewis
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Received 17 September 2020 from Janice Twede:
Ann,
These quilt tops were made and given to my great grandmother Julia Moore. Jane would have been her husband Franklin Moore’s aunt. Franklin’s Mom was Jane’s sister Sara Moore married to David Moore. They met on the wagon train coming to Utah when Sara was a young girl. Grandma Julie would trade peaches for quilt tops. She would send the material home with Jane after her visit. I am not sure but I just bet that they canned the peaches and Jane took them home. I think almost all of them are put together by hand, which to me is a real treasure. I wanted to get them together and then hand quilt them but as you see it never happened. My Mother, Athleen Humphreys Toombs was the daughter of Frank and Julia, Lillian Humphreys. She is the one who had them and passed them to Mom and then to me. My Mom has been gone 4 years and there is no one else to ask in her family. Oh her sister is 89 and still alive but she was 10 years younger than Mom so I am not sure she remembered Jane, but my Mom did.
I am so excited for you to have them and then pass them on thru your family. I am 78 years old and right now I have an 82 year old Husband with congested heart failure and not doing good. He is on hospice but it seems things are going down hill fairly fast. He had open-heart surgery 16 years ago and I guess this is about how much extra time he got. His kidneys are starting to fail so that puts a damper on things and he has water in his abdomen. So my life is kinda on hold right now.
We have 6 children, 5 girls, and 1 boy. 3 of them live in Utah county. One in Orem-girl, one in Lindon -girl, and our son lives in Eagle Mt. area and is in a Stake Pres. there. Our oldest girl lives in Farmington, Ut, our youngest girl in Draper, and our middle-middle girl, lives in Ogden. WE have 21 grand children ranging in age from 31 to 5 1/2. We have had 10 so far serve missions and one on his way to the mission field and a couple in the wings in a few years. We have 7 gr-grandkids. We have loved camping and getting together to go on a few vacations together. I have been primarily a stay-at-home Mom but have worked out of my home most of my life. My husband’s family originated, after getting here in the Payson-Santaquin area and also the Holladay area in SLC. In fact that is who Holladay is names after is Darrel’s GrGr Grandfather. They also were called to San Bernadino to raise cotton because they came from the South.
My family on Mom’s side came with the Willey company. My Dad’s side got here just months before the completion of the RR. So they worked on the track bed and housed the Chinese. They lived in Promentory and Willard.
That gives you just a little about me. You probably could check some of that info out if you went on family search and went through Sara and David Moore. I have put a lot of pics on our sites and you might enjoy seeing them.
Well I will send Jennifer to you with the quilt tops probably the first of the week
It is a pleasure to correspond with you.
Janice Toombs Twede
7 Oct 2020
Three beautiful quilts tops were delivered to Aaron today in Orem. He sent a pic and I’ve asked for more. They are wonderful. One is a grandmother’s flower garden set in diamonds with yellow sashing, one is a navy and white half-square triangle nine patch type made with scraps–maybe men’s suits. The third is a scrappy patch quilt. Looks like 3″ patches. All are hand pieced, I think. They are really beautiful quilt tops and I will treasure them.
Here’s how I descend from William Barker, brother to Jane Isabella:
Ann Laemmlen Lewis < Grace Helen Smuin < Franklin Smuin < Harriet Matilda Barker < William Barker < Frederick Barker & Ann Bligh
Here are some more photos of the 3 quilt tops that were delivered to Aaron:
Here is some history about Jane Isabella Barker and her family:
Jane Isabella Barker (1839-1927)
Frederick Barker b. 1800 in England and Ann Bligh b. 1802 in England are my 3rd GGparents. They had 13 children, most born in Diss, Shelfinger, England. William Barker (1833-1902) was my 2nd GGpa. His younger sister is Jane Isabella (1839-1927). She died in Idaho.
Frederick was born 4 October 1800 in Diss, Norfok, England to William and Jane Barker. he had seven brothers and sisters. There were: Rhoda, Leonard, William, George, Matilda, James and Harriet. Frederick grew up in a stern but loving family. He received little schooling but learned the value of hard work and how to enjoy it.
He met a lady by the name of Ann Bligh. Ann was the daughter of Daniel and Sarah Pease Bligh and was born 8 February 1802 in Shelfanger, Norfolk, England. Frederick and Ann were married 18 February 1822 and settled at Diss, where four children were born to them: Matilda, Mary Ann, James and Sarah.
In 1830 the English government furnished transportation to poor families to go to America. Among them were George, Frederick, James Barker and their sister Harriet Barker Jarrell and their families. They crossed the ocean in an old English sailing ship the “New Brunswick”, equipped with armory. They sailed 23 March and were 13 weeks on the ocean arriving at Staten Island 22 June 1830. During the voyage, smallpox broke out on shipboard & all of the Barkers, except James, son of George were down with it at the same time. Sarah, the wife of George died and her son was the only one of the family to see her lowered in to her watery grave, which was done by tying hands and feet, attaching weights and sliding the body down a plank into the ocean. [In Don Barkers book, “Odyssey” it states on page 5, ” It is said that Frederick Barker was so afflicted with the disease that a bed sheet taken from his bed would nearly stand alone.] They located first at LeRay and later about 1836 they settled in Watertown where they joined the church about 1845 in New York. In March of 1846, he moved to Lebannon, Van Buren Co., Iowa, where he resided until May 1849, when they moved to moved to Council Bluffs, Iowa. In the 1830 census of LeRay, Jefferson Co., NY, both Frederick and brother George were listed as Parker.
[William, my 2nd ggpa and later Jane Isabella –along the all of the last 8 children were born in NY]
On July 7th, 1849 his family left Council Bluffs with the Allen Taylor company for Utah, arriving at Salt Lake City, 20 October 1849 and three days later at Ogden.
The next day, being the Sabbath, a layover for rest was taken, and a meeting was held in the Bowery. Many of the company avialed themselves of the privilege and heard Orson Pratt speak. On Monday morning, 22 October, Frederick Barker and family proceeded on the camped that night at Bountiful, Davis Co., Utah. They next day they traveled as far as Layton and camped. 24 October 1849 the company arrived at what afterwards was named Ogden, and stopped for the winter in Brown’s Fort, locating in a group of cabins between the two rivers, near where the Ogden River enters Weber River.
Here in this locality Frederick lived for a while with his family. In the Spring of 1850 they moved cabins and all from Brown’s Fort into Farr’s Fort near the old woolen mill site between Mill Creek and Ogden River just below where the North Ogden canal was afterwards made around the foothills.
Soon they moved on to Mound Fort. About his time, Frederick and Ann were divorced. Ann taking three of the younger children. Harriet, Jane and Byron with her and Frederick taking Henry.
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Memory on FamilySearch:
Jane Isobelle Barker
Born in New York in 1839, Jane Isobelle Barker was brought west to Nauvoo after the Saints had already begun to evacuate, and she sat on the steps of the empty temple and cried. Then the family ferried across the Mississippi. Three years later they went on to the Salt Lake Valley. Along the way she gathered buffalo chips for fuel, played, and danced. Once Indians came into camp demanding meat, and across the camp saw a pan with buffalo chips in it that Jane had put out. They thought it might be meat, and that night they snuck back and stole the pan. When the family got to Zion there was not a lot of civilization. They got sugar from beets, but didn’t have much flour. The Barkers went north to the Weber County area, where Jane married Henry Dennison Durfee. She was shy, but spoke frequently in tongues, and on one occasion Eliza Snow interpreted for her, saying she had spoken in Hebrew. In 1927 she died in Almo.
This information is taken from “Pioneers, Patriots, and Saints: Ancestors of Edgar Odell Wake and Siblings,” by Ruth Wake.
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David Moore married Sarah Barker (1829-1908), the sister of William and Jane Isabella Barker. Franklin Moore was their son. Sounds like the quilts were left to their daughter, who is the grandmother of Janice Toombs Twede who wrote to me.
This month I have finished 2 of the 3 quilts. I’m still waiting for inspiration about how to finish the Grandmother’s Flower Garden top. Here are these lovely quilts now, ready to be loved and enjoyed by our family almost 100 years after Jane died. What a gift!
These patches are hand pieced from dresses and feed sacks and clothing. I think they are absolutely charming!
