Last Saturday I spent the night at the home of my sister Laurie and her husband Dick Sanford up in Bloomville, Delaware County. It's always a treat to stay with them and you know you are going to be eating well.

For dinner, we had lamb chops and new potatoes and Dick picked some ramp greens which Laurie steamed. With some butter and a little salt, they made for some sweet eating. In the morning Dick made French toast with their homemade maple syrup, homemade applesauce, and cider pressed from their apples. It doesn't get much better than that.

That night Laurie gave me a quilt that had been in the attic of Aunt Evelyn Kohler's house. On one corner of the quilt were stitched the initials L.K. and the year 1919. Laurie and I wondered who in our family had made this quilt over 100 years ago.

I had a hunch that this quilt had been sewn by our Great-great-grandmother, Mary Amelia's mother Magdalena Kehrlie Krantz. I had heard my Great Aunt Evelyn call her grandmother Lena, a shortened form of her name. A little research on the Old Fulton Postcards website (fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html), which archives many former Sullivan County newspapers, and my hunch was confirmed. L.K. had to be Lena Krantz.

Magdalena was born in Bern, Switzerland, and came to America when she was ten. Her parents lived on Swiss Hill. Lena Kehrlie and her husband Christian were married on June 11, 1876, and thereafter ran one of the first boarding houses in the hills of the Beechwoods. They had the boarding house for thirty years, after which they moved down to the village next door to their daughter's home, the Victorian house that William built across from the offices of William Kohler and Sons.

In the June 17, 1926, edition of the Sullivan County Record, there was news of Lena and Christian's Golden Anniversary celebration. To wit:

Married Fifty Years.

Mr. and Mrs. Christian Krantz Celebrate Golden Anniversary at Their Home Here Friday.

Mr. and Mrs. Christian Krantz celebrated their golden wedding anniversary at their home in Delaware last Friday night, with fifty-five relatives gathered around them for the big feast, which was served at 11 p.m. The long table was decorated with golden ribbons, and a wedding bell hung in the center of the room. The arrangements were by the couple's only child, Mrs. William Kohler, and daughter Evelyn, and the latter baked the wedding cake. Among the many guests were two nieces, Mrs. Margaret Coddington of California and Mrs. Amelia McCall of Oregon, who came East to visit their father, Henry Maurer of Fremont…Sixteen years ago they removed to this village, and both are still enjoying good health…Gifts of gold and other valuable articles were presented to the celebrants.

In 1919, Magdalena (Lena) Kehrlie Krantz, at the age of 61, stitched a quilt which warmed her great-great granddaughter on Saturday night. History mystery solved!