Continuing our celebration of Heart and Soul of Golden month, this is the fourth in a series of articles describing the histories of Golden Cultural Alliance members.
Eugenia Mitchell moved to Golden in 1952. A few years later, her husband died of a snake bite. After that, she supported herself and her four children with a variety of jobs.
As a widow, Mitchell worked as a cleaning woman and caretaker. In her spare time, she quilted. Along with counterpanes, she created patchwork skirts, vests and shoes that never failed to fascinate onlookers. Her materials came almost exclusively from worn-out clothing and fabric discards, and what she found at thrift shops.
“She lived by her wits, knowing how to find bargains and how to make do,” said longtime friend Pat Moore.
Denver Post – December 22, 2006 – “Quilts told story of Eugenia Mitchell’s life“
She owned several acres of land at the mouth of Clear Creek Canyon, and took in borders. After a time, she began acquiring mobile homes and renting them. This began a long-running legal dispute with the county, which insisted that her land was not zoned as a mobile home park.
Folk art began attracting attention in the 1960s, and in 1970 the then-fledgling Foothills Art Center presented a show of Mitchell’s quilts. The exhibit attracted a great deal of attention. Mrs. Mitchell began teaching quilting classes and entering regional art shows. In time she became a noted lecturer about the history and craft of quilting. She traveled with the Colorado Chatauqua society and had a show at the Denver Art Museum. She accumulated an impressive collection of antique quilts, in addition to the ones she made herself.
In the 1970s and ’80s, she was running a quilting store in Golden. At this time, she began sharing her dream of founding a quilt museum. In 1981, a group of quilt enthusiasts set up as a non-profit organization and began soliciting funds to establish a museum. The Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum opened in 1990, with 101 of Eugenia Mitchell’s quilts forming the nucleus of their collection.
Mrs. Mitchell died in 2006 at the age of 103. The museum that she founded is thriving, presenting four exhibits per year as well as lecturers, study groups, and summer camps. Their Sandra Dallas library contains more than 7,500 volumes on quilting.
The Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum | 200 Violet Street, Suite 140 | map | 303-277-0377
