If
Teddy Ivy wakes up in the middle of the night, curious about a part
of his family's history, all he has to do is consult the quilt on
his bed.
While most wives give their husbands shirts and shaving lotion, Teddy's
wife Barbara recently gave him generations of family history stitched
into a patchwork quilt.
With roots reaching back more than 150 years, the Ivy family has been
a part of Angelina County's history since patriarch Cyrus Ivy came
to the county in 1860 and settled on 320 acres in the Huntington area.
The deed for the property, signed by Governor Sam Houston, is found
in minute detail on the quilt.
Another quilt block lists all of Cyrus' children, including five born
by his first wife, Susan Ellington, who died in Mississippi, and three
others by Alice White, whom he married when he migrated to Texas.
Cyrus and Alice's marriage license, also stitched into the quilt,
says they were married in East
Texas in January of 1857.
Cyrus bounced around Mississippi and Texas before he settled down
in Angelina County. He bought forty acres in Mississippi and when
Susan died, he bought another forty acres in Anderson County, Texas,
and sold his Mississippi farm.
In Angelina County, Cyrus settled near Huntington in a community that
came to be known as Ivy. The name was later changed to Odell, which
later became a ghost town. The area is now known informally as Oak
Flat.
The Ivy quilt also summarizes Cyrus' service during the Civil War
and carries a depiction of a Confederate flag.
The quilt confirms that Cyrus served with Company D of the 26th Texas
Infantry, was wounded in 1864 in a battle at Mansfield, Louisiana,
spent time in a Shreveport hospital, and was discharged at Camp Nelson
with a $50 bounty for his trouble.
The quilt says when Cyrus died, Alice applied for and received a Confederate
widow's pension. To qualify, she had to list her property.
According to the quilt, she had twelve head of cattle, nine head of
hogs, and recently sold two yearlings, one for six dollars and another
for eight dollars.
The quilt confirms it all, right down to Alice's X because she couldn't
read or write.
Ivy Cemetery, near old Odell, is a small burial ground, but on the
third Saturday of each October, the Ivy family gathers for a reunion
and shares the family's history.
This year, Teddy Ivy's quilt is sure to be the reunion's highlight.
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