A very special quilt hung at the rear of the church on Jan. 25, 2015, as Dutch Mennonites from the province of Friesland gathered in Drachten to celebrate World Brotherhood Day. This signed quilt, made especially for An Keuning-Tichelaar as a gift of thanks for the assistance she gave to Mennonite refugees in the years after the Second World War, represented “connectedness,” the theme for the day. The quilt symbolized connections between Mennonites in Friesland and Mennonites in Canada and the U.S.
While the Netherlands was under Nazi occupation in the early 1940s, Keuning-Tichelaar and her husband, a Mennonite pastor, provided assistance to Jews and others in need. When the war was over, she gladly burned all the vermin-infested bedding she had used to house her guests. But then Mennonite refugees from Ukraine began arriving at her door and she had no bedding. She turned to Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) for help.
Peter Dyck at the local MCC depot had no mattresses, but he sent her quilts that had been donated by Mennonites from North America. These quilts were used to shelter many refugees fleeing from Ukraine. When the flow of refugees finally stopped, Keuning-Tichelaar kept a number of the quilts.
Many years later, Lynn Kaplanian-Buller was a guest in Keuning-Tichelaar’s house and heard the story of the old quilts. She was intrigued and helped to organize a travelling exhibit of the quilts in North America, their place of origin. In 2005-06 the quilt exhibit travelled to many Mennonite communities in Canada and the U.S., sometimes in conjunction with MCC relief sales. Also in 2005, Good Books published the book, Passing on the Comfort: The War, the Quilts and the Women Who Made a Difference, by Kaplanian-Buller and Keuning-Tichelaar.
As these old quilts were displayed, visitors to the exhibit had the option of putting their signature on a new quilt made in the same style. When the travelling exhibit ended, this quilt with many names was presented to Keuning-Tichelaar. She highly values this gift that evokes so many memories and sleeps under it every night.
This quilt with its hundreds of signatures reminded those who gathered to worship on Jan. 25 of the bonds that tie Mennonites and other Christians together. During the service, led by Korneel Roosma, the quilt was passed by hand over the heads of the congregation, symbolizing a literal passing on of the comforter. Participants were deeply moved by this experience that expressed the theme of connectedness so well.
—Posted February 12, 2015
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