Writing engaging stories for women readers
J MARY MASTERS
(Judith)
Sophia’s Rajah Quilt
She wanted it badly
a trinket, largely worthless
but it wasn’t hers to take.
She almost hanged for wanting
to rise above her lot.
Instead they shipped her
much against her will
to a place across the ocean.
In the sordid southern port
she slipped into a way of life
that meant survival,
offering only what she could
in free exchange.
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Catching a disease
she didn’t know existed,
her future clouded by the knowledge
that one day it would take her
over the edge
into madness
But in those years in between
she gave a fledgling country
so much more
than it gave her.
Her name is not remembered
in the towns she helped create.
She’s forgotten,
her memory lost,
her story barely known
to anyone
save for a fragile quilt
more valuable than anything
her small hands ever stitched.
Now a national icon
the Rajah quilt holds stories
that we will never know
except that our Sophia’s clever fingers
once worked upon the cloth.
Judith Masters
© 2009
More Information
For more information about the RAJAH QUILT, go directly to this link to the National Gallery of Australia
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My convict ancestor Sophia Grantham
My relationship to Sophia Grantham: I am directly related to Sophia through my mother.
My maternal great grandmother (my mother’s grandmother), Keziah Jane Ryan (nee Eyles) was Sophia Grantham’s (later Kezia Tregilgus’) granddaughter.
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The descent is via Sophia Grantham's one surviving child, her daughter Ruth.
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There is a book about Sophia's life, written by my late relative Barry Allan. For more information, go to this link
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