McClenny Family Website

Baker County Heritage Park

Baker County Heritage Park
6793 Sandsdale Road • McClenny, Florida 32063

30 July 2005

Beaches Area Historical Society, Inc.
Sam Van Leer, Board President
380 Pablo Avenue
Jacksonville Beach, Florida 32250

Dear Mr. Van Leer,

     On behalf of representatives of the McClenny family, I acknowledge your letter dated July 25 of this year pertaining to the Miracle Quilt of Democracy made by Kate McClenny. I am sure the McClenny family will be relieved to learn that the quilt will be installed as a part of the permanent display in your museum.
     As for Heritage Park's request to display the quilt, we responded to the McClenny family's wishes, so you owe us no apology or regret. You should make that to the distraught McClenny family. Our organization does not seek to own or possess any relic or collection from anyone, regardless of how historical or meaningful to our local history. Items are placed on indefinite loan. We have followed the methods of other respectable and notable museums and hopefully we will never have to worry about upsetting anyone over their family's heirloom as has been the case with BAHS and the McClenny family. Case in point. Although the Canova family arrived in St. Augustine during the 1700s, the Old St. Augustine Village Museum recently released, at the family's request, a framed wedding dress made in 1902. It was given to the St Augustine museum by the Canova family several years ago, but they changed their mind because the couple reared their family in Baker County and they felt the dress would have more significance here. Kate McClenny reared her family in Baker. She only lived at the Beaches 20 years. Before her death she requested to be buried in ‘my beloved home of McClenny’. She is buried locally in Woodlawn Cemetery. She left her quilt to the family, in care of a granddaughter.
     Your letter will be posted immediately, along with a copy of this letter, on the McClenny family web site as a part of the family's effort to redeem their heirloom. In addition we will, at Heritage Park, frame a copy of your letter, with an exact size mural of the Miracle Quilt the family is providing. It will serve as part of our portraying the history of the family whose name our town bears. This is a request of the 59 direct line family members who signed the petition declaring that the person giving you the quilt did not have the right or the authority. As people tour our park and learn of the McClenny family's quest, perhaps it will inspire them to be careful with whom they place their heirlooms. We highly recommend indefinite loan procedure to avoid this grievous problem. The McClenny family would like the quilt their grandmother left them to have some recognition in Baker County, as well as its fate and destiny. We will honor this request.
     Mr. Van Lear, in all of my communication with the McClenny family spokesperson, Faye Miller, she expressed faith that because of your character the quilt would be returned to the family. She had no doubt especially when 59 members of this family signed a petition that the quilt was illegally given to the BAHS and so many of the direct line McClenny family members personally contacted you. Today she told me the story of Moses calling on Pharaoh to 'let my people go'. Pharaoh wouldn't. Just as the BAHS will not let the quilt go. Now she feels the quilt will not only be in your hands, but on your conscious and that God is in control of it. How sad you could not let this quilt go and be returned to the family it rightfully belongs. I think it is one of the most serious travesties of injustice I've encountered in my 45 years of experience with historical preservationists.
     May your decision, and that of the BAHS, bring you the kind of peace and satisfaction you so deserve. May God have mercy on your decision on behalf of this family. Is the quilt really worth the price?

Most sincerely,

LaViece Smallwood, Director
Baker County Heritage Park

cc: Faye McClenny Miller
John McClenny
Tony McClenny
Eleanor Flowers
Mary Catherine Scotton
McClenny Web participants

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