A family donates quilts
believed first bestowed
by Queen Liliuokalani

Anne McNeil did have not have sun, sand or blue skies on her mind when she flew to Oahu on a hurried trip last month. Her mission was more personal. She was fulfilling a promise made to her father, George Deubner, before his death in March.

McNeil flew from her Concord, Calif., home to present the Bishop Museum with heirlooms believed to have come from Hawaii's last reigning monarch: two quilts that had been in her family for more than 100 years.

The quilts were believed have been gifts from Queen Liliuokalani to McNeil's grandfather's second wife, Marie Vallete Ford. Ford was the daughter of a Parisian missionary who, at the age of 18, settled with her father in Lahaina.

---

CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM Maile T. Drake, collections manager at Bishop Museum examines a quilt donated by Anne McNeil. The quilt was a family heirloom and is believed to have come from Queen Liliuokalani.

---

The McNeils and other Deubner family members believe the quilts were wedding presents from the queen to Marie and her first husband, Robert Ford, who were married in Lahaina on Sept. 11, 1879.

"It was my father's wish," said McNeil. "He thought Bishop Museum would take good care of them. He wanted to come back to Hawaii to return the quilts, so we came back to do that. The trip was strictly for him."

McNeil and her three siblings, the children of Deubner and his third wife, Phoebe, shared ownership of the quilts, and all agreed to donate them to the museum. While they might not know all the details about the quilts' history, they knew that their parents wanted the pieces preserved.

"We had grown up with the quilts," said McNeil. "I can see that more people should be able to see it, rather than just us seeing it on our walls."

McNeil's father loaned the quilts to the museum and to the Mission Houses Museum for display in the late 1980s. He tried to sell them to the museums but then decided he wanted them donated permanently to Bishop Museum, she said.

One quilt, which measures 65 by 68 inches, has a reverse-appliquéd pattern showing several Hawaiian flags. The quilt is accompanied with a yellow ribbon bearing Queen Liliuokalani's name, believed to be her signature. The other quilt is red and white, 84 by 78 inches, with hand-appliquéd breadfruit and pineapple designs.

After her first husband died in Hilo in 1905, Ford moved to California and brought the quilts, some bowls, a tapa cloth and stamps among her possessions, but shortly after her second marriage, to Julius Deubner on June 27, 1911, she died at age 31.

The bowls and stamps might be long gone, given away or used until they deteriorated, but the quilts eventually ended up in the basement of McNeil's father's house in Orinda, Calif. They were forgotten until he found them while cleaning out the basement.

McNeil, and her husband, Ian, wasted no time in turning the heirlooms over to the museum when they arrived in Honolulu. About an hour after stepping off the plane, they hurried to the museum to give their gifts to Maile Drake, cultural collections manager. Accompanying the quilts was a thick stack of letters and requests made by Deubner over the years in seeking a home for the quilts.

Drake said she is happy with the donation from the last queen's era.

"So many people like to donate things," said Drake. "We can't take everything because we do not have enough room. But because of the era and the time period, we thought it would be a nice addition to the collections. The pattern is a similar pattern to those of the time period, and it is in good condition. It is also accompanied with the ribbon with Queen Liliuokalani. It's beautiful, wonderful."

Drake said that as the museum adds the quilts into their collections and ethnology database, the quilts will be considered for future exhibits and as possible loans to other museums.