Teresa Kemp

Teresa Renee Wilson Kemp

"Atlanta's Quilt Lady" Quilter, Historian, Researcher, Griot and Director of the Underground Railroad (UGRR) Secret Quilt Code Museum & Traveling Exhibits

Is the middle child, Born August 9, 1957 in Baumholder, Germanyto American parents Dr. Howard Lee. Wilson (Retired Lt. Col.) and his wife Mrs. Serena M. Strother Wilson.

Underground Railroad Quilt Museum

The Underground Railroad Quilt Museum Exhibit was formerly located on the ground floor of Underground Atlanta in Atlanta, GA From 2005 to close in 2007. Ms. Kemp successfully fought cancer & congestive heart failure and is planning to re-open 2017. Until then she does, she keeps the Show on the Road doing traveling exhibitions and presentations. Traveling Museum Exhibits. Her family's mission has fallen to her since the death of her mother in 2012 & and her father in 2013.

Together they have done more than 4,000 historic exhibits, lectures and presentations in an effort to document, educate, research and foster cultural appreciation to teach delayed gratification and reconciliation skills. The Mission of Ms. Kemp is to continue researching, documenting and correctly preserving their histories & diverse cultures for the next generations to foster understanding and healing among people.

Education & Appalachian Family

In America, Teresa attended 2nd grade at Bluestone Elementary school in Bramwell WV. While her father was away on assignment her family stayed with his parents in Bramwell, WV. She learned many things from her grandmother Louise Wilson and her great grandmother Irene Jefferson, strong women, active in the community and church affairs. Howard's family got to know their Appalachian relatives, their strong faith, zeal for education, the dialect ("Mountain Talk") and their culture.

She learned to shoot a shotgun (shooting at rabbits out the kitchen window that would be in their garden), grow and preserve crops grown in the garden on the steep slope of the mountainside behind the house. She learned to sew and quilt, make preserves, jelly pies and deserts from the fruits we picked like wild blueberries, rhubarb, cherries and apples all grown and picked from her great grandmother's yard.

Her grandfather, Thomas Wilson was born in Coopers, WV. He worked was a coal minor, He held the office of deacon at his church. He was a hunter and would hunt, skin the catch on the clothes line in the yard. He had pigs, chickens and big garden where she learned to prepare preserve for winter months by smoking, canning, freezing and processing vegetables that would be put up for the winter months. He would make lamps made from Popsicle sticks and build and repair cars. He was always busy tinkering in his workshop.

of the and She also attended St. Thomas Catholic School in Columbus, Ohio when her father was sent to Vietnam. She also attended Indianola Junior High School in Columbus, Ohio.

When her father returned from Vietnam, he received his orders to go to Germany. She attended Heidelberg American High School in Heidelberg, Germany. Her father was transferred to his next duty station and her family moved with him. Her older sister Denese and Teresa attended and graduated from Berlin American High school located in Berlin, Germany. Teresa was 15 years old and totally immersed in restoration/preservation of the history and Germany culture. She loved going to the libraries, the museum, art events and sports. She participated in ballet, gymnastics, basketball, cross country, track and field and was a cheerleader. She was involved in the Student Government Association and was elected Class President of her high school class at Berlin American High School in Berlin, West Germany.

After graduation she left Berlin American High School and traveled to the United States alone and attended Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.

Teresa transferred to West Virginia State Collegein Institute, WV now a University (WVSU). While there she was voted "Female Athlete of the year", Ms. Winter Carnival, Ms. Sullivan Hall and was a cheerleader. She majored in Political Science with a concentration in History. Dr. Miller, assisted in selecting an internship where she served in the State of West Virginia's Flood Relief Project.

Teresa formed a committee and organized the first homecoming parade held in years. Inviting participation of community organizations, surrounding area school marching bands, businesses to build floats, dance troops, flag corps, fraternities & sororities and student organizations for a wonderfully attended event.

She was instrumental in starting summer camps at the college as a fund raiser in different sports and disciplines from cheerleading, baseball, basketball, band, track, swimming and ROTC. She inviting elementary to high school aged youth to participate from surrounding areas. It was often the first time the participants had been on a college campus. Needed funds were raised for fall semester projects and more importantly, it lead to many of them attending WVSC when they graduated from high school becoming the first in their family to attend college. The community felt welcomed on what had been a formerly (HBCU) Historically Black College.

Teresa graduated with a Bachelors of Arts degree. Over the years, she have had 28 members of her the family attended or graduate from West Virginia State College. Howard, Teresa's father was the president of the National Alumni Association for 10 years. She graduated from DeVry University in Atlanta, GA with a Bachelors of Science degree in Computer Information Systems.

She worked in the Shared Accounting Taxes and Controllers Department as a Computer Programmer/ Analyst and provided IT Security administration for GP's enterprise systems (400 locations) of Georgia Pacific Corporationat the Headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia following her graduation.

In 2005, with her parents Dr. Howard & Serena Wilson she opened the family's UGRR Secret Quilt Code Museum Exhibit. As the great-granddaughter of David Richardson Strother, a Rock Hill, SC plantation owner and the fifth generation of quilter of West African ancestors who were former slaves/abolitionist, she was uniquely knowledgeable and passionate about documenting and exhibiting her family history. Teresa’s paternal Strother family has several historic plantation homes still located in South Carolina on the National Register of Historic Places. The Old Strother Place also know as Fruit Hill is located in Saluda County, SC.

As a researcher, Ms. Kemp continues to do traveling exhibits with our families’ extensive collections of African/American plantation artifacts and textiles to encourage revisiting interpretation, documentation of the collection, stabilization the collections and giving hands-on preservation experience opportunities to students of museum science and history.

Her Diverse Strother Family

Her mother, Serena Strother-Wilson, was one of 17 children of Milton Strother (1856-1943) and his second wife, Mary Eva McDaniel. Eleven (11) of her mother’s siblings were born prior to 1900. They have wills, photos, US Census Records (including slave schedules for 1950 & 1960 for her great grandfather's plantation) data, state birth, marriage, death and military service records and more. The families copies of records date back to her first immigrant ancestor on the Strother side, who settled in America 17th century Virginia.

Mrs. Kemp's first relative of European descent in the America was William Strother from Northumberland, England. For more information on the Strother line in America visit the Strother Society Page. His will is dated 1702 and was filed in Virginia. This side of the family is well documented back to the year 160 in Europe and includes King John of England,Charlemange, King Fergus I / Fergus_of_Galloway), as documented in the Strother's genealogy book that documents 46 generations of Strother's. The Atlanta History center is one of the Strother family repositories of the collections of

Her maternal McDaniel-Farrow family came from the West African areas of Dahomey & Anambra State, Nigeria, sold in America as slaves they were called Geechie-Gullah people were living along North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida coastal areas and inlets.

Having their Glynn County, Georgia plantation wills from 1844 and 1858, along with 4 slave valuements, they are able get a rare view into the day to day workings of a southern plantation. The enslave were able to keep and pass along their African culture due to absentee owners (gone up to 7 months a year) due to malaria and yellow feverdisease outbreaks.

As metal smith/pastor, Peter and his wife, Eliza (a weaver, seamstress and midwife) could hire themselves out and keep their money giving their owners a percentage of the proceeds of their labor when he returned.

The Nigerian itinerant craftsmen (in Igbo craft guilds) used this same system in Nigeria bringing the proceeds back for support of the villages and their tribes. We must not forget, the culture must be documented and shared with future generations.

With her husband Calvin Kemp, Jr. a television Production Manager and former Director at Community Television WATC TV-57 in Norcross, Georgia. She has eight children, twelve grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. They reside in a home built in 1939 by her father in law, an Atlanta brick mason. We continue to do traveling exhibits and fight Human Trafficking, using our family legacy to teach delayed gratification and reconciliation skills.

We house a small exhibit of the collection of Farrow-McDaniel Quilts in Malden, West Virginia at Booker T. Washington’s boyhood home purchased by WVSU.

Teresa Kemp (talk) 21:07, 21 January 2014 (UTC)