Recently we acquired a beautiful 80” x 76” quilt from Jennifer Witte Yoder, daughter of Charles Fredrick and Janice (Sullivan) Witte who had received it from her grandmother Mildred Krout Witte after her passing on April 17, 1972. Mildred was the wife of Richard Witte. She was born in 1908 and a 1927 graduate of Waterville High School. Mildred was known as “Bud” and she and her husband operated the Witte’s Restaurant at River Road and Mechanic Street where Bud was the cook. Later on they moved to the Flying Horse Tavern beside Kurt’s Mobil Station on South River Road. Mildred was a Past Worthy Matron of Roche de Beouf Chapter Order of Eastern Stars where she was very active. As a young girl Jenni loved seeing the beautiful dresses she wore for the meetings. She was also very active in the Waterville American Legion Auxiliary. Jenni remembers “selling” poppies. It took us awhile but with researcher Bob Chapman looking through the Roche de Beouf Social Club minutes that we have at the Wakeman Archives, we were able to find the information on when the quilt was made. These minutes are always available for the public to use to research. Jenni wanted the Historical Society to have the quilt because of all of the area names embroidered on it.

The Idea of creating a friendship quilt was presented at the October 22, 1958 meeting of the O.E.S. Social Club. Names to be placed on the quilt were to be sold for twenty-five cents each. On February 1959 volunteers began to collect names. The names all seem to be from Whitehouse, Waterville and Monclova area. October 1960 Ethel Stoneman asked for help to embroider names on the quilt squares. The names look like possibly the same person may have written all of the names in cursive on all of the squares and others may have done the embroidering of the names as they were asking for help with the quilt squares. April 1965 the quilt was being quilted by Monclova Ladies Aid. May 13, 1965 the finished quilt was displayed at the meeting and priced for sale at $30. The quilt was sold to Mildred Witte at the June 10, 1965 meeting. The quilt is a large yellow and white quilt with a large star burst pattern in the center surrounded by alternating yellow and white five inch squares. The white squares have four or five names embroidered on each for a total of 286 names in all. One corner square is marked “O.E.S. 163 Roche de Beouf Social Club.” The quilt backing is plain white muslin. There is a border of yellow then white and a yellow scallop outer edge.

Note: the name Roche de Beouf Social Club is not spelled like others spell Boeuf.

The Roche de Beouf Social Club Quilt