WILFORD, Idaho (KIFI) — In January of 1976, Relief Societies in the St. Anthony Idaho stake were asked to make quilts for America’s Bicentennial Celebration. Several women, including Shareen Parkinson, went to work creating a masterpiece.
Shareen served as the 2nd Counselor under Relief Society President Rayola Birch from 1975 to 1979.
On June 3, 1976, Rayola placed the finished quilt on the top shelf of a closet inside the relief society room, which was on the second floor of the Wilford Church building. And on June 5, the Teton Dam flood came rushing through the valley.
“They found pieces of the Relief Society room up in the trees and all over,” said Alisha Teitjen, Curator for the Museum of Rexburg. “And so, they thought the quilt was just gone.”
And what happened next is a miracle.
“There was basically nothing left of the church but the one part of the Relief Society room,” Shareen recalled. “So [Rayola’s] husband and son got up in the debris, sand, crap, and there was the quilt on that shelf untouched.”
Before her death in 2016, Rayola wrote down her account of what happened, preserving the quilt’s impactful history.
For the next few days, every Sister I came in contact with asked the same question.
“What about the quilt?”
“Is the quilt gone?”
“Did you save the quilt?”
They seemed to acknowledge losing everything they had, but not their beloved quilt. They all wept for joy in thanksgiving when learning the quilt had been spared.
Our chapel is gone, yes; and we will rebuild, but there will never be another “miracle quilt.”
The quilt won the Bi-centennial Grand Champion award. As for the Wilford Church building, it was so badly damaged it had to be torn down and completely rebuilt.
