Quilts, however, satisfied another need as great as that of physical warmth: the need to feel connected to family and to other generations, the need for continuity. Quilts offered a way of maintaining ties at a time when photographs were uncommon (or unknown), and the arrival of letters by mail could take months. Quilts constituted contact ... Quilts become archetypal symbols of the women who make them. They 'stand in' for the quilter, long after she is gone, revealing to descendants, viewers, or new owners the essence of the quilter – her spirit, energy, vitality, and skill. —-Jean Ray Laury, Ho for California, 1990