THE PICTURE QUILT
Lewis and Clark in Kansas - 1804

Quilt Design and Story by Ruth K. Schultz

Stories are told in different ways -- in books, by grandparents, movies, pictures and lots of other ways. Well, this story is told in picture blocks in a quilt. The story is about a little part of a very big event in the history of our United States of America. Each picture block has a name which is part of the story.

The big center block is the picture and name of the story and it begins like this:

Many years ago in the land beyond the Mississippi River there were no states like Kansas and Missouri and Montana and Oregon. There were no cities like Kansas City and Omaha and Seattle. There were no highways, no railroads, not even a gravel or dirt road. There were forests and great plains and prairies and mountains and rivers. The people who lived there were Native Americans, people we call Indians. The land beyond the Mississippi was very beautiful and rich and wonderful.

The land on the east side of the Mississippi was called the United States and the President then was Thomas Jefferson. President Jefferson wanted to know more about the land beyond the river. He also wanted to find a way to travel far across that land to the Pacific Ocean. So he chose Captain Meriwether Lewis to lead the expedition. Lewis asked his friend, William Clark, to be his co-captain. They, in turn, selected a group of 45 men to go with them on the long journey which began in the year 1804.

Lewis and Clark and their Corps of Discovery began their journey on the Missouri River from Camp River Dubois, Illinois, near St. Louis. Although they traveled by boat, they explored the land along the river too. They studied the plants and animals and birds. They wrote about what they saw and drew pictures in journals. They described the land and drew maps as they traveled. Remember, all of these things were new and no one had ever written about them before.

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