Saba was the daughter of Levi Cushman, a physician of Needham, Massachusetts, and Elizabeth Gray of North Carolina. Saba’s father died in North Carolina in 1817 at age 32. It is unlikely that Saba was over 18 when she embroidered this sampler, so she would have been very, very young when her father died. Saba seems to have been raised in Massachusetts. Her father had 2 sisters, Sally who married Thomas Sturtevant of Middleboro and Nancy who married Josiah Robbins of Plymouth. Saba herself married William Ritchie, a clerk in the railroad office of Springfield, Massachusetts. She was still living in 1855. Saba, who was a descendant of Robert Cushman, Myles Standish and William Bradford, lists her genealogy in three columns, divided by narrow geometric bands. In the lower corners are small urns with stylized flowers and leaves. The sampler, which is worked on 30/32 count linen and measures approximately 17" wide x 24" high, is in poor condition, having been exposed at some time to moisture. |
Updated 14 July, 1998
