Family finishes century-old quilts started by their great-grandmother

A Winnipeg family worked to complete a pair of quilts more than a century old for Christmas. Joseph Bernacki reports.

What’s the oldest Christmas gift you’ve ever received? For one family, it’s a pair of handmade quilts more than a century old that brought a holiday surprise they won’t soon forget.

Winnipeg resident Brent Prusak said the gift for his parents this year was something he couldn’t buy—115-year-old handmade quilts that have stood the test of time.

“It’s really neat to hold something in my hand that my great-grandma made when she was 35 years old and to know no one has touched it since,” said Prusak.

This fall, Prusak was helping his parents downsize when he discovered a trunk covered in dust in their basement.

What he found when he opened the trunk was the legacy of his great-grandmother Ada May Horner.

Partially complete quilts dating back to the early 20th century with newspaper clippings to hold the patterns in place. The unfinished quilts had sat in that trunk for decades.

“My wife and I took them home, and we started taking all the little pieces of paper out of the quilts, and a lot of them had dates on them dating back to 1910,” he said.

Prusak hired his quilting next-door neighbour to finish the quilts, which would be the perfect surprise for his parents, Dennis and Arlene Prusak.

“Very unique, very surprising, unbelievable,” Arlene said, telling CTV News she was speechless when she held her grandmother’s completed quilts.

She says Horner had quilted her entire life, making more than 300 quilts for the Red Cross to support children overseas and across Canada.

She’s preserved a family history book from Horner’s time living and quilting in Saskatchewan.

Looking at the different patterns, a flood of memories comes back.

“What a good dressmaker she was. A lot of them would come from dresses that my grandma made for her 11 children and little suits for the boys and for the man,” Arlene recalled.

The family says the cherished keepsakes won’t be tucked away for the next century.