My Veterans Quilt

A Profile By Virginia Millington

I have been a quilt-maker for over 50 years. I moved to Connecticut from Rutland, Vermont in 1954 with my family, and we lived in a cottage at Short Beach until 1967. I went to elementary school in Lordship, attended Johnson Junior H.S., and graduated from Stratford High School in 1965. I got hooked on quilts and quilting in 1976 during the country’s Bicentennial. 

My grandmother was a quilter and she was the one who taught me how to sew. I remember that she used an old Singer treadle sewing machine to make all of her quilts. I still have some of those old quilts. 

Beside my passion for quilting, I love tracing my family’s genealogy. I wanted to make a Veterans Quilt to honor the men in my family and in my late husband’s family who had so honorably served our country during a time of war. With my Veterans Quilt, I feel I was able to combine both of my passions. It is more than a quilt to me – it’s really a historical document.

When I began this quilt, the four people surrounded by the gold stars had already passed away, as well as the veteran in the center with the Purple Heart Medal. I used whatever photo I had on hand at the time, but if I found a photo of them in uniform, I took that quilt block apart and replaced it. I actually re-made this quilt several times!

People often ask me how I printed the photos onto cloth. I used a company called Spoonflower to print all the photos on cotton fabric. These photos are permanent and won’t wash out or fade if someone accidentally throws this quilt into a washing machine 100 years from now! (God forbid!)

Pictured on this quilt are four Marines, three Army veterans, one U.S. Army Air Forces veteran and one Navy veteran.

Top: Row 1 (L to R) shows my husband’s cousin, Myron Peter Hardy; my late husband, David Nelson Millington; and my uncle, Arthur Raymond Hughes.

Center: Row 2 (L to R) shows my father, Arthur Henry Mott; my husband’s great-uncle, Frank M. Millington (wounded in World War I); and my uncle, Charles Joseph Hughes.

Bottom: Row 3 (L to R) shows my two brothers-in-law, James Allen Gregory and James Dygert Wilson. On the right is my brother, James Arthur Mott.

The center block in Row 2 is dedicated to my husband’s great-uncle, Frank M. Millington, who fought in France during World War I. Since I did not have a picture of Frank, I scanned the front and back of his Purple Heart medal, which had been passed down to my late husband. The back of the medal has Frank’s name engraved on it. I was told that engraved Purple Heart medals were usually presented to men in hospitals or at a special ceremony later. The State of Connecticut Military Service Record (#11485) for Frank states that he was wounded just below Soissons, France, on July 19, 1918, by a high explosive shell. Frank spent three months in Camp Hospital #27 in Tours, France from July 21, 1918 until October 18, 1918.

Seven of these nine veterans are from Connecticut and four of them formerly lived in Stratford. The other two veterans (my uncles) are from Vermont.

The four veterans from Stratford are:  

My late husband, David Nelson Millington (1942-1986), grew up on Temple Street. He graduated from Stratford High School in 1960 and joined the U.S. Marine Corps right after graduation. When he got out of the Marines in 1964, he worked at AVCO Lycoming for a while before later becoming a self-employed carpenter.

My father, Arthur Henry Mott, a World War II veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, moved us all here to Connecticut in 1954 because of a better job offer. Until his retirement in 1980, he worked as a rate clerk for the McLean Trucking Company, which was located in Stratford.

My brother, James Arthur Mott, was about eight years old when we moved to Stratford. Jim graduated from Stratford High School in 1964 and enlisted in the U. S. Navy. Because of his height, (6′ 4″) he was chosen to serve with the U. S. Navy Ceremonial Guard in Washington, DC. He did that for two years before he volunteered to go to Vietnam. He served in the Navy for eight years. In 1968, while stationed in Long Beach, California, he met a girl living there who was from Guam and they got married. They will be married 56 years this coming December!

I don’t know much history about my brother-in-law, James Allen Gregory. He was very young when his father died. By 1950, his mother had remarried and Jim was living on Jackson Avenue in Stratford. He joined the U.S. Marines shortly after 1950 and married my late husband’s sister, Jean, in 1955. They later moved to Florida.

I hope my Veteran’s Quilt expresses how proud and grateful I am for a family who has given so much time and service to this country that we love.