Cuesta Benberry, 83, authority on quilts
WASHINGTON - Cuesta Benberry, 83, one of the nation's foremost quilt scholars, who pieced together the history of the art from castoff patches of information, died of congestive heart failure Aug. 23 at Forest Park Hospital in St. Louis.
Ms. Benberry's research was so fundamental that "in nearly every quilt book today, Cuesta Benberry will be quoted in the text or her name will appear in the bibliography," the Quilters Hall of Fame noted when she was inducted in 1983.
"She began to look very seriously at all the aspects of quiltmaking - where patterns came from, the people who made them - at a time when people weren't looking at quilts, much less the history of quilts," said Bettina Havig, a quilt historian from Columbia, Mo.
Not a quilter herself, Ms. Benberry nevertheless became interested in the craft when her mother-in-law gave her a quilt. When she visited her in-laws, who lived in Kentucky, she began to learn about the pride that women took in that work.
"I think we get so emotional about quilts because they're such an integral part of many people's lives," Ms. Benberry told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in 1998. "They're on the bed. They're there at birth. They're there at death. They're part of the marriage bed. They're part of our lives, and they give us so many memories."
Ms. Benberry's occupation was teaching in the St. Louis public schools, but her preoccupation since the 1960s had been learning about quilts, said her son, George V. Benberry of Elgin, Ill. She collected paper ephemera, which are the patterns, as well as documentation of quilts and quiltmakers. She is credited with rescuing innumerable documents from oblivion, researching their importance, and communicating that to the world.
"She was a serious scholar at a time when the kinds of conveniences we take for granted - digital photography, copying machines, e-mail - weren't possible. She did the difficult research," said Xenia Cord, president of the American Quilt Study Group. "She also inspired innumerable people to research. She would hone right in on what you should look at and force you to ever finer and finer points."
Born in Cincinnati, Ms. Benberry grew up in St. Louis and graduated from what is now Harris-Stowe State University in St. Louis. She received a master's degree in library science from the University of Missouri at St. Louis. She worked in the local school system for 40 years and retired in 1985.
In addition to organizing exhibitions, Ms. Benberry wrote four books: "Always There: The African-American Presence in American Quilts" (1992), "Patchwork of Pieces: An Anthology of Early Quilt Stories, 1845-1940" (1993), "Piece of My Soul: Quilts by Black Arkansans" (2000), and "Love of Quilts: A Treasury of Classic Quilting Stories" (2004).
