The Comfort Quilt is one of 250 quilts received by the Town of Newtown, following 12/14. The plaque that accompanied its arrival in Newtown tells a special story.

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, 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 delivered the quilt, again in a show of support and comfort, to Northern Illinois University, where five students died 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 UAHunstville by a NIU delegation.

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

According to the plaque, “The University of Alabama and the City of Tuscaloosa cherished the quilt in honor of the 53 lives lost, 1,200 injured and more than 8,000 left homeless. With condolences and prayers, the City of Tuscaloosa passes the comfort quilt to Newtown, Conn., and Sandy Hook Elementary School… We hope this quilt brings them peace, comfort and encouragement.”

It is clear, said Town Human Resources Director Carole Ross that the Comfort Quilt is meant to be shared, “and unfortunately, it will probably be passed on. We have always honored the givers’ requests [so far as is reasonable].”

That cannot happen, however, until the quilt is located. Since the spring of 2013, the quilt has been missing from the collection of items preserved by the Town of Newtown. Ms Ross and others believe that the quilt may have been taken from its display in the Municipal Center hallway in February of that year, when the public was invited in to tag letters and memorabilia they wanted to claim.

Items that the town meant to keep in its possession, including the Comfort Quilt, were tagged previously, so that others would know they were not available. The tag may not have been noticed, and while items were not meant to be removed at that time, it is possible this is when the quilt went missing.

“When we took the display down [in February 2013], we organized the items by the tag colors [that indicated where they would be directed]. I don’t think we noticed then that the quilt was missing,” said Ms Ross. Other items were inadvertently taken during that period, Ms Ross said, and most of them were quickly returned when the error was discovered.

But by the following month, when only the plaque could be located, she realized the missing quilt was something that would have to be looked into.

In mid-summer of 2013, Newtown resident and former C.H. Booth Library reference librarian Andrea Zimmermann volunteered to help create an archive for the town. Ms Zimmermann has interned under Jane Cullinane, Preservation Librarian at the Connecticut State Library. With the help of experts and volunteer Mary Goebel, two town archives were developed.

“The first archive is the approximate 250,000 letters and greeting cards, which now reside at the Connecticut State Library as part of the State Archives. This material remains the property of the Town of Newtown; the State has archived it and makes it accessible to researchers in a controlled setting. The second archive is a sampling of material that was selected, inventoried, photographed, packed in archival housing, and stored in a secure, climate-controlled facility at Iron Mountain in Windsor, Conn.,” said Ms Zimmermann.

As she and Ms Goebel inventoried items for archiving, Ms Zimmermann came upon the Comfort Quilt plaque, and read the story. She began searching for the quilt that was meant to go with it.

“I didn’t even know what it looked like,” Ms Zimmermann said, making the search even more of a challenge.

“I asked [Carole Ross] if she or anyone on staff in Municipal Center knew where this quilt was — or what it looked like. No one knew where it was and could not remember what it looked like. I had hoped to come across the quilt as I worked with material over the ensuing months; I hoped the quilt would be identified by a tag on the back or the name of the school on the front somewhere, as was common with other quilts sent to town,” she said. But the quilt failed to appear.

She realized she would need an image of the quilt in order to track it down, but she hesitated to ask any of the previous owners for a picture. “I didn’t want to admit that it had gone missing,” she said. She finally approached Tamara Kenneally at Virginia Tech, with whom she had had a relationship from previous work. Ms Kenneally, she said, was very understanding as to how the mishap could have occurred, and supplied a photograph.

With the photograph in hand, it was clear that the quilt was not among the thousands of articles archived for the town.

“All of the quilts sent to Newtown are special,” emphasized Ms Zimmermann, “but this quilt is different because of where it’s been. It has been passed on to communities in pain. We would like to find it, so that one day it could be offered to another community, when the time is right,” she said. “We want the quilt returned to the town, so that it can continue to offer its venerable tradition of comfort,” said Ms Zimmermann.

“When Andrea brought the plaque into our office, I remembered the quilt right away,” Ms Ross said. “Everything we received — that was appropriate — had been hung in our hallways. That, I believe, was one of the quilts we hung,” she said. The story behind that quilt made it particularly memorable.

The quilt is approximately 4 feet by 4 feet square, with a church appliqué stitched in each of the lower two corners, and heart appliqués stitched into the upper two corners. The words “We Are Blessed” are written across the top, and “We Are Thankful” across the bottom of the quilt. Individual quilt squares are hand drawn by the St Hilary students. Information about the quilt can be conveyed to Ms Ross at 203-270-4246, or the quilt can be returned to the First Selectman’s office in the Municipal Center at Fairfield Hills.

Whether the quilt was taken by accident or simply was irresistible to someone does not matter, Ms Ross said.

“Don’t be embarrassed to return it, if you have it,” she urged the public. “It’s so special. We feel it should be shared.”