Road Trip – Missouri (Part 12)

…continuing with our exploratory road trip along Missouri’s backroads and byways.  The city of Hamilton, with 2 museums and a quick lunch, was our last stop before leaving Missouri and arriving at our son and daughter-in-law’s home in Omaha Nebraska. 

Following our visits to the Walt Disney Hometown Museum and the General John J. (Blackjack) Pershing Museum, we continued west on US Hwy 36 to Hamilton, the home of two more museums, including one that features another well-known personage.

Hamilton is another hometown for a ‘celebrity’ of sorts.  James Cash Penney of the J.C. Penney Department Store Company, lived in this town for several years before he created his retail empire.  The museum shares this building with the town’s library on the left side of the structure and the memorial museum for Penney at the right side…

To be honest, this museum isn’t too impressive.  Much of it is devoted to articles, signing, promotional items and bits of James Cash Penney’s history as well as that of his company.  A full size model or replica of an older J.C. Penney greets visitors from behind a showcase.  Penney’s first and last business desks are on display as is his last office chair.  Other exhibits include his Masonic sword and a plethora of his pedigreed livestock.

Factoid: In 1940, while visiting a J.C. Penney store in Des Moines Iowa, Mr. Penney showed a young 22 year old clerk just how to wrap packages with a minimal amount of ribbon.  The clerk’s name was Sam Walton...

One of the artifacts on display in this little museum was this newspaper article.  On April 17, 1924, the Hamilton Advocate-Hamiltonian headline announced the opening of James Cash Penney’s 500^th store…this time in his own childhood hometown.

J.C. Penney (1875 – 1971) was the seventh of twelve children, of which only 6 lived to adulthood.  His father was a Baptist preacher and farmer.  A strict disciplinarian, he made his son pay for his own clothing starting after his eighth birthday.  Penney had hoped to become a lawyer but his father’s early death forced Penney to go to work as a store clerk to help support the family.  His discipline and business sense paid off.  Penney opened his first store in Kemmerer Wyoming in 1902. 

By 1929, the JC Penney Company was operating 1,400 stores.  With the stock market crash and the Great Depression, Penney lost almost all of his personal wealth and had to borrow against his life insurance policies to keep the company going.  He gave up control of the company to others but still remained active…going to his office daily almost until his death.

Upon Penney’s death in 1971, the Reverend Dr. Norman Vincent Peale delivered the eulogy.  Penney was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York City, close to the grave of F.W. Woolworth.  By 1971, the company recorded sales of $5 Billion…equivalent to $36.1 Billion in today’s dollars. (Talk about inflation!  That is a 722% jump…or decrease in the value of the dollar) The company peaked with 2,053 stores in 1973.

James Cash Penney isn’t the only entrepreneur from Hamilton Missouri.  It is the hometown of Jenny Doan who, with her children, has built a large quilting-related business in the city.  With annual sales of $20 million dollars, the Missouri Star Quilt Company owns 26 buildings in Hamilton and it is a partial owner of 3 restaurants.  With 450 employees, the company is the largest employer in Caldwell County.  In addition, the business brings as many as 8,000 quilters to Hamilton each month…almost 100,000 visitors a year!

I don’t know if Kathy’s Kitchen is one of the restaurants that is partially owned by the Missouri Star Quilt Company…but it is the place that we chose for our lunch break.  The décor is quirky, befitting a town that attracts a significant number of tourists and, as you can see, outdoor seating is provided for those who are so inclined.

The menu is basic, featuring a number of sandwiches, a few Mexican offerings, a series of hotdogs, and a selection of salads.  I chose the Tenderloin Sandwich ($9.00) with mayonnaise, iceberg lettuce and tomato.  Laurie went for the Chicken Club ($9.00) with fried chicken, mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato and bacon on a hoagie roll.

Both of our sandwiches were sizable and satisfying.  By the time we left, Kathy’s Kitchen was quite busy, feeding local workers and tourists alike.  To learn more, just go to Kathy's Kitchen | Hamilton MO | Facebook.

The Missouri Quilt Museum has taken over and remodeled the Hamilton Schoolhouse.  This official Missouri State Museum features 30,000 square feet of indoor space.  Their goal is to create that largest and most interactive quilt museum in the United States.  It hosts quilting exhibits from local artists as well as top quilt designers from around the world.  This structure features 3 floors of exhibits…all served by a new elevator.

With little effort, I found that there are many quilting museums in the USA.  I found a list of 18 including this one.  Other states that have quilting museums include Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Utah, Texas, California, Washington, New York, Wisconsin, Colorado, Alabama, Kentucky, Nebraska, Georgia, Virginia and Florida.  I’m sure that there are others as well.  We’ve previously toured the National Quilt Museum in Paducah Kentucky.

…and now for a few quilt photos from our visit to this museum.

This handsome quilt has aged well.  Coming from central Missouri, it is over 160 years old…

Family history for this quilt states that it was made by African American slaves in Mississippi during the 1840s.  The brown color came from the use of leftover coffee grounds from the slave’s owner.  The cotton batten between the layers of fabric still contain some cotton seeds… Despite being much used, it is in remarkably good condition. 

This is one of our favorite types of quilt!  It is a “Crazy Quilt”, named because scraps of fabric were cobbled together in no particular pattern.  We have a quilt like this ourselves but it has deteriorated significantly as much of the fabric came from old silk gowns worn by family members back in the late 1800s. 

This particular crazy quilt was made by Mary J. Rorabaugh (1828 – 1901) for her granddaughter’s tenth birthday in 1891.  It was donated to the museum by Mary’s great grandson…

This colorful creation is the Missouri Bicentennial 4-H Quilt.  This piece of art was created by quilters from all over the state, with each of them making a block to represent their county…all 114 of them!

August 10, 2021 was the two-hundredth anniversary of Missouri becoming the 24^th state to become part of the United States of America.

I didn’t copy down any information about these 2 quilts but I included them in this post because I liked them…

FYI – In 2013, Astronaut Dr. Karen Nyberg made a quilt block while in space.  It’s on exhibit at the museum as are many other new and complex quilt designs.  Laurie and I just prefer the old patterns and quilts.

It’s not all about quilts at Hamilton’s Quilt Museum…but the other exhibits are related to quilting in one way or another.  There is a room full of doll beds all covered with mini-quilts.  As you can see above, there is an exhibit of thimbles and sewing machines…with just a fraction shown in my photos.  Another exhibit features buttons and there is even a collection of antique toy sewing machines.

So just how crazy…or dedicated to quilts…folks are in Hamilton Missouri?!  How about this ‘quilt themed’ limousine that was parked outside the museum.  It is definitely over the top!

If you would like to visit the Missouri Quilt Museum, it is open Tuesdays through Saturdays.  Adult admission is only $12.00 and seniors only pay $10.00!  The museum is not funded by the Missouri Star Quilt Company although the company’s founder, Jenny Doan does exhibit there.  To learn more, go to Missouri Quilt Museum | United States | Quilt Museum.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them… This concludes our backroads trip through parts of Missouri.

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave