The American Red Cross that provides emergency assistance and disaster relief was founded May 21, 1881, and Carroll County started its ARC Chapter in 1917.
Thirty-four years ago, May 15, 1982, Dorothy Mathews Fuller donated a Red Cross friendship quilt top to the Eureka Springs Historical Museum. The quilt top, measuring 73 in. wide and 87 in. tall with 12 squares across and 14 down, was never completed with batting and backing. Most squares have two embroidered names of Eureka Springs residents. A large red cross in the middle of the quilt has names on four sides, Mrs. Boody, Mrs. C.E. Perkins, J.A. Bridgeford (correct spelling Bridgford), and H.G. Hays. There are 320 names on the quilt.
Claude Albert and May Obenshain Fuller, John Storrs and Ruth Fuller Cross, and John and Claude Cross, are three generations of one family named on the quilt top. John Fuller Cross, born 1934, and his brother Claude Christopher Cross, born 1935, are the only people on the quilt who are alive today as far as we know.
Andre Williams, owner of The Sewing Studio at Holiday Island for 20 years, did the restoration.
Visit the Eureka Springs Historical Museum to see the quilt and see if any of the 320 names are a relative of yours.