“They tell a really rich story”, Lincoln Museum receives panels of 9/11 Memorial Quilt featuring every victim

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – The International Quilt Museum is the newest steward of the ‘United in Memory 9/11 Victims Memorial’ Quilt collection.

Collections manager, Jaime Swartz, says it’s a special honor as we approach the 25th year anniversary of that tragic day.

“These quilts are an important record of an event that captures collective response and kind of collective grief, so they’re incredibly moving, highly personal records. They tell a really rich story,” said Swartz.

Each quilted square features the face of a life lost in the Sept. 11 attacks, telling a unique story through images or characters stitched on to it.

The mastermind behind the project is Corey Gammel, who began working on it after a trip to Ground Zero just a few weeks after September 11, 2001.

Gammel later said that he hopes the quilt serves as a “healing bomb to our wounded spirits.”

This is a sentiment Swartz shares.

“There is a therapeutic quality to stitching, which I think it would be really meaningful and probably helpful in dealing with all of the emotions that you have after such a profound event,” he said.

“Corey Gammel, in 2001, used the internet to bring people together to collectively create these quilts,” said Swartz.

The collection has a total of 142 panels, which have been dispersed to different museums across the nation.

The two panels loaned to the International Quilt Museum in Lincoln, feature two Nebraskans who died on that tragic day in New York City.

One of them is Jennifer Dorsey Howley, who grew up in Lincoln and later moved to New York.

At the time of her death, she was 34 years old and 5 months pregnant; known for her love of art, the Dorsey auditorium was named in her honor at Southeast High School.

The second Nebraskan is Paul Robert Ekna from Omaha, his quilted square features mini footballs and the Huskers’ logo.

In total, there are over 3,500 square blocks inside the quilts that make up this collection.

All squares are also digitized and can be found online or through a kiosk set up in the museum.

Twenty-five years later, these quilts help ensure that those lost are not forgotten.

If you would like to look at the collection or search for a specific person memorialized, you can do so at the following site: United in Memory | International Quilt Museum – Lincoln, NE