Hope and Survival Quilt and Scroll of Remembrance – Halifax Explosion

It’s December 2017 and the week of the 100th Anniversary of the Halifax Explosion.  I’m at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Hope And Survival Quilt by Laurie Swim

The Hope and Survival Quilt surrounded by its Scroll of Remembrance fill the room that I’ve just entered.  A tear rolls down my check. Names of family members that I’ve been researching and writing about are on the wall being memorialized through the scroll and what they lived through is in front of me in the form of a quilt. Thanks to artist Laurie Swim for creating this and her host of volunteers.

The quilt is a creatively stitched painting on a canvas of turbulent indigo blue and black clouds.
Life flies through the air in the form of a girl with her arms outstretched.  Her hat and boot, having been blown off, are flying with her.  Her pose resembles that of superman as she flies to a safe place where she survives.

As though miles below her, in the upper left hand corner a tiny map of the devastated area appears with sparkly red threads spurting out.

The framed scenes around her add to the narrative as a ship explodes, help arrives, and survivors appear, some with eyes shut having lost their sight.  Within the clouds lie finer details, like a canoe and the silhouettes of people in various heights and sizes appear to rise from the ashes.

Surrounding this masterpiece is the Scroll of Remembrance.  The magnitude of the loss is felt with height and depth of the scroll that surrounds the quilt.  One thousand nine hundred and forty six lives are remembered and represented on the 172 panels that make up the scroll. 

Scroll of Remembrance - Laurie Swim

Hundreds of volunteers took panels and embroidered names in beaded Braille and English.

Gratitude overwhelms me as I search for and find:

Annie Landry (23) and Clarence Landry (18 months) 
(Annie and Clarence - my great Uncle Dan Landry’s pregnant wife and son.)




Joseph Burke (54)
(Joseph - Pauline Bouchard Landry’s husband and father of five.  Joseph was working as a stevedore*. Pauline is my great Uncle Dan and my paternal Grandfather Joe’s mother - Charlotte Bouchard Landry's sister.)

The scroll of Remembrance touched me.
Do you know someone who is listed on the scroll?  I'd love to here how you're connected?



Note:
*A stevedore is "one who works at or is responsible for loading and unloading ships in port" according to www.merriam-webster.com

For more about Laurie Swim's work go to www.laurieswim.com

Halifax Explosion Remembrance Book - Search for Names