For centuries quilting has been a medium of storytelling.
Quiltmakers stitched together not just fabric, but also history, folklore and community.
One of the more famous examples of this for Australians are the Changi Quilts - three historical patchwork pieces stitched by Allied women and children interned by Japanese forces in Singapore's Changi Prison during World War II (pictured).
Created in 1942 to boost morale, they also secretly served as a lifeline to communicate to husbands that their families had survived.
Now this tradition of preserving history in patchwork lives on, thanks to the efforts of a South-East school in a tiny community with a big heart.
English teacher Katie England admits that there’s not a whole lot in the hamlet of Kangaroo Inn.
"There’s the ruins of the old inn and there’s the school," she laughs.
"A lot of our mail gets sent to Kangaroo Island!"
Kangaroo Inn Area School caters for around 115 kids from kindy to Year 12, coming largely from surrounding farms and the coastal towns of Beachport and Robe.
Katie and her colleague, home economics teacher Ange Leopold, were looking for a project that they might be able to enter in the Anzac Spirit Schools Prize, and they wanted to focus specifically on women in service.
"We were looking at finding a different way that we could approach this, a way that involved 'learning expeditions’ – a style of learning which our school is really focused on that involves cross-curricular, authentic learning with real-world contacts," Ange says.
The idea of the quilt was born, and the school reached out to the Millicent History Group, which was able to provide us information on local women who served during WWI and WWII as nurses.
"Then we reached out to our school community, and we got some really helpful feedback," Katie says.
"We ended up with seven veterans and one currently serving member from our local area."
The students then set about creating interview questions for the seven living veterans, with the women either meeting with the students in person or via Teams.
"We had women from all three branches of the military, which was fantastic, and the students were then able to take significant parts of their story and work them into the quilt," Katie says.
Ange says the students created four motifs for each woman’s story, which were then stitched into the quilt.
"The women from WWI and WWII that have passed away get a row in the quilt, and some of the living veterans gave us parts of their uniforms or ribbons, even driving gloves, that we then put into the quilt," she says.
Ange says that unveiling the finished work in the presence of the women who had contributed was a moving moment.
"When we unveiled it some of the veterans were quite taken aback and got quite emotional," she says.
"For some of the women it was the first time they had really told their story, and that was a responsibility that the children took very seriously."
Katie says that beyond preserving the region’s history, the creation of the quilt was an inspiring exercise for the students involved.
"It was so eye-opening as to which pathways they could take," she says.
"These were women who had literally pulled apart helicopters and put them back together, or sailed on massive ships in turbulent seas.
"You can’t be what you can’t see, so it was a great exercise on that front."
Katie says the quilt has inspired a lot of local interest, and that it would go on display in Robe and Millicent before being donated to former Army medic and Limestone Coast Veterans Hub advocate Liz Wheeler, who was instrumental in providing veteran women for the project.
Learn more about Kangaroo Inn Area School at the school’s website (external site).
