Sampler

Eliza Hodges Oliver American

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This sampler was made by Eliza Hodges Oliver of Suffolk, Virginia in 1829, when she was twelve years old. She included the requisite alphabets in a variety of lettering styles, and a religious verse that is relatively common on samplers from the early nineteenth century. After her name and information, she embroidered a long series of initials of friends and family; the first two "TO" and "MO" are the initials of her parents, Thomas and Mary Oliver. In 1838, when Eliza was twenty, she married a farmer named Richard Parker (1816-1857). They had nine children together; sadly three of their sons, Richard, Jesse, and Calvin, died as young men while serving as Confederate soldiers in the Civil War. Eliza herself died in 1863, while the war was still raging.

Sampler, Eliza Hodges Oliver (American, Suffolk, Virginia 1818–1863), Silk on linen, American

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