Fan Quilt
Louise Frances Copeland McCue
Laurens County, SC
ca. 1910
McKissick Museum Collection 2013.11.99
Made in a pieced block fan pattern first published in 1897 by the Ladies Art Company. The block squares and fans are quilted “in the ditch”—in the fabric seams and the muslin ground fabric is quilted in the fan pattern. “Made for Frank” is written on the upper right corner of the front and “Louise Copeland” is written on upper left corner on the back. “Frank” is also written on bottom left corner on the back. Frank Copeland was Louise Copeland McCue’s older cousin by 30 years.
Rose of Sharon
Maker Unknown
Abbeville County, SC
1854
Crazy Quilt
Olive “Ollie” Inabinet Boylston (1876-1944)
Aiken County, SC
1910
Louise Frances Copeland McCue (1887-1977) 2013.11.99
Louise Copeland was born in Laurens County, SC, the youngest of the eight children of William James Copeland and Susan Dora Badgett. Her father was a veteran of the Civil War, serving in Company F, 14th South Carolina Infantry Regiment under both Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee. He was wounded at Gettysburg in 1863, contracted typhoid fever, and then returned to service until Lee’s surrender in 1865.
Louise graduated from the Johnston Hospital School of Nursing in Richmond, VA in 1913. After earning her nursing degree, she worked at the Johnston-Willis Sanatorium in Richmond for several years. In 1916, she married Holcolm McCue, a traveling salesman for a meat packing company. By 1917, the young couple moved to his home state of West Virginia and settled in the town of Bluefield, where he worked as a salesman for the Armour Company. They lived in Bluefield for thirty years and had no children.
Soon after Holcolm passed away in 1948, Louise moved to Gastonia, NC, where she continued her work as a nurse. She was an active member of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the United Daughters of the Confederacy. At some point, she moved back to Bluefield, where she passed away in 1977. She is buried next to her husband at Monte Vista Park Cemetery in Princeton, West Virginia.