Biblical tale

A hidden treasure became the basis for a children's sermon at St. John's United Church of Christ near Fruitland.

Vernon and Bonnie Ludwig have a 79-year-old quilt that was handmade for Vernon in 1927 and has remained tucked away in a trunk ever since. His first-grade teacher's mother made the quilt for him.

When Vernon was a first-grader at Horrell School, his teacher, Lydia Eisenberg, boarded with the family.

"He loved that teacher," Bonnie said, hinting that perhaps that's why Vernon married another teacher -- Bonnie.

Miss Eisenberg became a part of the Ludwig family.

"They would sit up at night and sing songs," Bonnie said. "She lived upstairs and carried her wood up to light the stove. She carried her own water up there. When she first came to school, she came in a buggy."

Vernon's mother asked the teacher's mother, Louise Eisenberg, to make Vernon a quilt. It was packed away in a trunk to be used when Vernon grew up and got married.

He met Bonnie Armstrong on a blind date. Bonnie said he told her he loved her on their second date.

"I said, 'Don't say it unless you mean it,'" she said.

Soon afterward Vernon joined the Navy, and while he was away during World War II, he showed her he meant it. In a battered overnight case Bonnie has proof: 77 letters he wrote to her and 51 letters she wrote to him. All are tied in ribbon and lovingly preserved. The couple has been happily married now 60 years. Bonnie emphasizes the word happily.

Although Louise Eisenberg made the quilt for Vernon to be used after his marriage, he and Bonnie never slept under it.

"Someone gave us a quilt when we got married," Vernon said. "We wore that one out."

So the quilt remained unused in a trunk. Recently Bonnie and Vernon were going through the trunk, and brought the quilt out and took a good look at it.

Today the quilt's colors are as vibrant as they were in 1927. The calico backing and the dark blue border have not faded, nor have the red strips that separate the panels graced by a crimson fruit the couple couldn't identify.

They brought the quilt to a meeting of a quilt club and asked if anyone could identify the red fruit pieced on the quilt top. While all the members there admired the quilt, only one woman present offered an answer: a pomegranate.

Now the quilt took on biblical significance to the couple. Bonnie's brother, Carl Armstrong, found numerous biblical references to the pomegranate. In the Song of Solomon, "I would lead thee, and bring thee into my mother's house, who would instruct me: I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate."

According to legend, Bonnie said, people used to place a pomegranate on the altar in churches as a way of showing their love of God.

"Carl knows his Bible," Bonnie said of her brother.

The family now knows its pomegranates. The couple learned that the pomegranate was used as a symbol in the Bible. The high priest's robe was embroidered with pomegranates. The two columns in front of Solomon's temple were adorned with pomegranates. Some believe Eve tempted Adam with the pomegranate, not an apple, in the Garden of Eden.

So on a recent Sunday, Vernon and Bonnie took the quilt and some pomegranates to share at church and told the story of their quilt in a children's sermon.

The quilt remains protected in a pillowcase in the couple's home. It's too much of a treasure now to use, Bonnie said. She doesn't know which of her two daughters will inherit it when she's gone. She'll let them figure it out.

lredeffer@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 160