Newtown resident Jan Brookes was so moved last fall, after reading in The Newtown Bee about the loss of The Comfort Quilt, one of more than 250 received by the Town of Newtown after 12/14, that she determined to somehow find a way to replace the quilt and help Newtown continue to pay forward the comfort offered by the lost quilt.

The Comfort Quilt, with a plaque telling its special story, came to Newtown as part of its travels from town to town in need of healing.

Created in 2001 by the children of St Hilary Catholic School in Fairlawn, Ohio, the 35-block quilt was first presented to the students of St James Catholic Grammar School in Red Bank, N.J. after 9/11, as a tangible display of the thoughts and prayers sent their way.

St Joseph Catholic School in Madison, Miss., received the Comfort Quilt from St James in 2005, after Hurricane Katrina, and the following year, St Joseph School sent the quilt on to the Nickel Mines community in Pennsylvania, which lost five young children in a school shooting on October 2, 2006. The quilt was displayed at the Bart Township Fire Company until 2007, when it was carried personally to Blacksburg, Va., the site of the Virginia Tech rampage that claimed 32 lives.

A delegation from Virginia Tech later delivered the quilt to Northern Illinois University, after five students were killed there in a school shooting in February 2008. At the University of Alabama in Huntsville, three faculty members died in a school shooting, two years later. The Comfort Quilt was personally delivered to UA Huntsville by an NIU delegation.

From Huntsville, the quilt traveled on to Tuscaloosa, to the University of Alabama there, devastated by a 2011 tornado that killed six students.

The City of Tuscaloosa passed the quilt to Newtown and Sandy Hook, offering the hope of “peace, comfort, and encouragement.”

Meant to be passed forward to other cities in need of comfort, should that time come, it became impossible for Newtown to do so. Since the spring of 2013, the quilt has been missing from the collection of items preserved by the Town of Newtown, most likely mistakenly taken when the town allowed citizens to select from the thousands of mementos sent after the 12/14 tragedy. The Comfort Quilt was designated as one of the items not to be given away, but somehow, it disappeared.

“I felt a call to recreate the quilt,” Ms Brookes said Thursday, September 10, as she unrolled not one, but two quilts onto a table at the Newtown Municipal Center. “I felt, we can’t let it end with us,” Ms Brookes said.

Carole Ross, administrator of Human Resource for Newtown, was on hand.

“Just wonderful,” she murmured, as she looked over the approximately 49-inch square quilts. Each quilt is made up of 9-inch squares, hand decorated with markers by children from Newtown and Sandy Hook, as well as from St Hilary Catholic School. Four squares that anchor the corners of one quilt have special significance. They were donated by students, now college age, who made the original Comfort Quilt.

Town employees hung the two quilts, the work of many months for Ms Brookes, in the main corridor of the municipal center, on Monday, September 14, said Ms Ross. The quilts will remain there for at least a month, she said. Resident may view them during regular municipal center hours, generally from 7:30 am until 5 pm Monday through Friday.

The plaque that came with the original Comfort Quilt is exhibited alongside the quilts, as well as the poster Ms Brookes brought to the December 2014 Breakfast With Santa event, when Newtown children were invited to design a square for the new quilt, and a brief story from Ms Brookes about her process of creating the quilts.

Shortly after reading that the Comfort Quilt had gone missing, she contacted Ms Ross, said Ms Brookes, and told her of her desire to replace the quilt. Ms Ross was on board immediately.

“Jan was the only person who ever contacted us [about doing something to replace the Comfort Quilt],” Ms Ross said.

Ms Brookes also contacted Eileen Monea of St Hilary School, whose class had originated the Comfort Quilt. Ms Monea was thrilled to be part of the new project, she said.

Having Newtown and Sandy Hook children contribute to the quilt was essential, though, so Ms Brookes provided cloth squares and markers to children attending the December 2014 “Breakfast With Santa” event at Newtown Middle School. The response was so great that she realized she would have to make two quilts.

“[The drawings on the squares are] very much where these kids were at, at this point in their lives, the Christmas season of 2014. What struck me,” said Ms Brookes, “was the depth of thought of these kids.”

Not a regular quilter, Ms Brookes used suggestions from her friend, Suzanne Davenport, and began the task of creating the two quilts. She decided that one would utilize squares drawn by Ms Monea’s 2014-15 first grade students reflecting that school’s religious background, as well as squares contributed by Newtown students. She also determined that “the St Hilary quilt” would contain the four squares from the former St Hilary students.

The second quilt, which she refers to as “the Newtown quilt,” is made up of squares from Newtown and St Hilary students, and the four corners are anchored with drawings from Newtown Girl Scouts who were present at the Breakfast With Santa.

The Newtown quilt also harbors an additional touch of love. Ms Monea’s class contributed 22 felt hearts, one from each of the students in her class. Those hearts are sewn in between the backing of the quilt in one corner, and around the edges.

Because so many quilt squares were created at the breakfast, Ms Brookes could not place all of them on the fronts of the quilts. She found a place for the holiday-themed squares, generally made by the youngest artists, on the flip side of the Newtown quilt.

Heartfelt Designs

Asked to consider the theme of thankfulness and blessings, the Newtown children in December came up with colorful and heartfelt designs, Ms Brookes said. Families, patriotic symbols, pets, and nature are prevalent among the squares she sewed onto the two quilts.

It was a privilege to make the quilts, Ms Brookes said, and a task she took seriously. There were many choices to be made, and challenges to be met. But creating them was a kind of meditation, allowing her to “wipe everything from the brain, and just try to sew a straight line,” Ms Brookes said.

In the moment, she found she was thinking only of the problem in front of her. As she laid out the squares, including several more donated to her after the breakfast, she considered carefully the end result.

“How would it look? These were the decisions,” she said. Each day ended with a challenge she knew she had to think carefully about before the next session.

“Each time, before I sat down to work, I said, ‘Help me to put the right spirit in this,’ a prayer of sorts,” Ms Brookes said.

The two quilts are machine stitched, except for the binding and backing, which were hand stitched. Unlike the first Comfort Quilt, the two quilts put together by Ms Brookes have no “filler” squares. Every block on the quilts is a child’s artwork.

Having two quilts will make it possible for the comfort to be doubled. After the quilts are taken down from Newtown Municipal Center, said Ms Brookes, she will deliver the St Hilary quilt to Ohio. From there, that school can decide when it should be passed on.

The Newtown quilt, Ms Ross said, will most likely be carried to Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., where a gunman killed nine people this past June. It is a task that she would like to do herself, she said.

“I think that most of the quilts we received here in Newtown were hand delivered,” Ms Ross explained, and she is certain that representatives from the University of Alabama brought the Comfort Quilt to the town.

Ms Brookes said that as one of the many volunteers who opened the thousands of pieces of mail sent to Newtown, following the Sandy Hook School shooting, she understood completely how the Comfort Quilt could have been misplaced.

“It’s not perfect, but that’s okay,” Ms Brookes said, although Ms Ross was baffled as to where the imperfections lay. She feels at peace now, knowing that Newtown will be able to carry on the journey of the Comfort Quilt. “There are, sadly, so many places the quilt could have gone since we received it. Unfortunately, we only have to wait…” said Ms Brookes.

“I’m so glad you did this,” said Ms Ross, adding that as soon as Ms Brookes approached her, she knew the finished project would have to be displayed for townspeople to appreciate.

“None of this belongs to us,” Ms Brookes said, indicating the two quilts. “It was meant to be given away. All together,” she said, “we created something wonderful.”