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Graduate Works in Progress: Stitched From Silence: The Collins Family Archive

Graduate Works in Progress: Stitched From Silence: The Collins Family Archive

The Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Wednesday, October 28, 2026 5:30 pm - 6:30 pm Susquehanna Hall, 4116

When my dad was five, his father was shot and killed in Cleveland, Ohio, leaving behind a wife, four kids, and silence where history and memory should've been. I grew up not knowing much about how my grandfather died, and practically nothing about how he lived. This project is my attempt to fill that silence. The culmination of my research is a quilt in memoriam to my grandfather, John W. Collins, and a digital family tree and archive. This archive & tree will live on Webtrees, a free open-source online collaborative genealogy software. It will be accessible only to the family, but not locked behind a paywall like most other family genealogy platforms. 
I’m using interviews and archival research to piece together what I can of John’s life. I'll explore what I can't find in interviews and archives through quilting. This quilt serves not just as a culmination of the research, but as a central method of it. Quilting as a method allows this project to turn towards the messy silences within John’s history, and relate to these gaps in his history and memory. Piece by piece, the quilt holds both what I’ve found and what I’ll never know. For a lot of Black families, absence is its own unique kind of inheritance, and it deserves to be reckoned with, not just mourned, pushed down, and seldom spoken of. 
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The Graduate Colloquium Works In Progress Speaker Series pairs a 30-minute graduate-student work-in-progress or conference-style talk with 30 minutes of questions, discussion, and feedback. All pre-candidacy graduate students will present during the 2026–27 academic year

Add to Calendar 10/28/26 17:30:00 10/28/26 18:30:00 America/New_York Graduate Works in Progress: Stitched From Silence: The Collins Family Archive

When my dad was five, his father was shot and killed in Cleveland, Ohio, leaving behind a wife, four kids, and silence where history and memory should've been. I grew up not knowing much about how my grandfather died, and practically nothing about how he lived. This project is my attempt to fill that silence. The culmination of my research is a quilt in memoriam to my grandfather, John W. Collins, and a digital family tree and archive. This archive & tree will live on Webtrees, a free open-source online collaborative genealogy software. It will be accessible only to the family, but not locked behind a paywall like most other family genealogy platforms. 
I’m using interviews and archival research to piece together what I can of John’s life. I'll explore what I can't find in interviews and archives through quilting. This quilt serves not just as a culmination of the research, but as a central method of it. Quilting as a method allows this project to turn towards the messy silences within John’s history, and relate to these gaps in his history and memory. Piece by piece, the quilt holds both what I’ve found and what I’ll never know. For a lot of Black families, absence is its own unique kind of inheritance, and it deserves to be reckoned with, not just mourned, pushed down, and seldom spoken of. 
 -

The Graduate Colloquium Works In Progress Speaker Series pairs a 30-minute graduate-student work-in-progress or conference-style talk with 30 minutes of questions, discussion, and feedback. All pre-candidacy graduate students will present during the 2026–27 academic year

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RSVP

This talk is free. Seating is first come first serve with preference given to graduate students enrolled in WGSS 628: Colloquium in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. This event will not be online and is not recorded or made available for distribution elsewhere.

Cost

Free