Sampler

This sampler’s centerpiece is a two-story red brick building with two front doors. Susan Bushey’s inscription suggests that it represents the Methodist Episcopal Church in St. Louis, where her family was active. Although the building lacks a steeple or cross, one early Methodist Church in St. Louis was reportedly designed with separate doors for men and women, a detail that may explain the facade. The red brick church and stylized baskets of fruit are carefully stitched in contrast to the freer handling of the birds and small cat and dog that flank a tree at the bottom. A floral border unifies the whole. Susan’s inscription records that she attended the “E.B. Hms/ School” in nearby “Brunswick, Chariton/County. Missouri” Brunswick was first settled around 1820 by James Keyte an English Methodist minister and this still unidentified school, likely had connections to the Bushey’s St. Louis Methodist community.

Born in Maryland in 1827, Susan Bushey moved with her parents, George and Mary Bushey, to the pioneer city of St. Louis around 1832, where she spent the rest of her long life. In October 1848, she married William T. Cardwell (b. 1820), a Methodist preacher and member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He may have died, since it is recorded that Susan later married Thomas Depew. A newspaper notice of her death on May 12, 1905, aged seventy-eight, describes her as a “well-known North St. Louis woman.” She was buried in Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis.