Ask Viola Sargent about the quilt sprawled across the back of a couch in her living room, and she might tell you about the year she and a ladies group decided to make a double quilt with hand-sewn squares. Fifty of them to be exact – each representing a state.

“Hawaii became part of the country in 1959. That’s why we made the quilt – in about 1960 or so,” the Ellsworth resident said.

Sargent, who is 93, says the U.S. commemorative quilt was made to raise money for the First Congregational Church of Ellsworth. Each square, placed in chronological order according to each state’s entry into the Union, depicts a state bird and flower. The colors, of course, are red, white and blue.

“Someone had seen an ad in the paper for the pattern, sent for it, got it. We made it and raffled it off in the summer fair,” said Sargent, who thinks only one other woman who worked on the quilt still is living. “Somebody visiting from New Jersey won it.”

That somebody was Helen Jacobus Davis, a nurse from Newark. She occasionally visited a friend in Ellsworth and, one summer, won the quilt in a raffle. She took it back to her home and, because she had twin beds, stored the blanket in a closet. In 1986, the year Davis passed away, her niece Alma Griffin inherited the quilt. She, too, stored it away, taking it out only when her own church group visited.

Over the years, Sargent, who considers herself a master knitter, hunter and outdoorswoman rather than a quilter, would sometimes mention the American quilt they made together.

“We’d say, ‘Remember that quilt and how we squabbled over who got what state?'” Sargent said, laughing, as she sat on a chair, knitting needles and partially made sweater in hand. “Everybody wanted Maine. I took Massachusetts.”

But the women never imagined the quilt would make its way back to Maine – and in perfect condition.

Earlier this year, Griffin decided to return the quilt to its native state.

“My aunt didn’t want to take it when she won it because she wasn’t a native or a resident of the church,” said Griffin, who is 85 and now lives on the New Jersey shore. “After it came to me, I felt I wanted it to go back to Ellsworth. The people there put so much work into it, and the handwork is so impressive.”

The women’s group has not yet decided what to do with the quilt. Some think it should stay put at the Ellsworth church. Others think it might be a good way to raise more funds. They would like to display it at one of Maine’s quilting shows.

Time, however, marches on. And, as with many church groups, another raffle is not far off.

“We’re working on another quilt now that may go down in history,” said Sargent, motioning to a pile of cloth squares on another couch across the room.

Each square of this quilt, according to the pattern, will hold the signature of a famous person. Candidates, already written hopefully into the layout, include Billy Graham, Oprah Winfrey, Pope John Paul II, Shirley Temple Black and Nelson Mandela.

“There’s a saying that everyone is only six handshakes away from someone of importance,” said Sargent. “So we think we can track down these people from various places.”

And why not be hopeful? Stranger things have happened. Just ask the women in Sargent’s church group.

Alicia Anstead can be reached at 990-8266 and aanstead@bangordailynews.net.