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message: Get everything ready for your long journey!- including your spiritual and mental tools.

The Ship's Wheel was another pattern that gave a similar message to prepare in every sense of the word. The the last pattern was the Tumbling Blocks, which meant that the slaves should pack up and go because of something that happened in the area such as the arrival of an Underground Railroad agent.

Ozella's story is the basis of a book by Jacqueline Tobin and Raymond Dobard:"Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad", published in 1998.

Here are the meanings of the quilt patterns:

1)Star - Follow the North Star.
2)Log Cabin - This symbol indicated that a person was safe to talk to. An alternative message: Seek shelter

3)Shoofly- identifies a helpful guide nearby

4)Wagon Wheel Pack up the wagon or prepare to board the wagon to begin the escape.

5)Crossroads-reaching a point where a person's life will change

6)Bear's Paw -Follow the path made by bear tracks, a mountain trail to get to water and food.

7)Bowtie - Disguise yourself or change clothes.

8)Flying Geese - point to a direction to follow

9)Drunkard's Path - Avoid being followed. Walk in a zig-zag path.

A wonderful book close to this topic for elementary school-aged children is:
Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt by Deborah Hopkinson, James E. Ransome (Illustrator). Clara is a seamstress in the Big House and she has been dreaming of reuniting with her mother who lives on another plantation. Clara overhears two slaves talking about the Underground Railroad and she has a great idea about how she can use the cloth in her scrap bag to make a freedom quilt to help slaves in a way that masters would never figure out.

The Freedom Quilt story is a fascinating historical highlight that illuminates the people and places along the Underground Railroad.

Learn more about this author, E.M.Robinson.
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