Emma Mary Martha Andres was born August 18, 1902, in Prescott, Yavapai County, Arizona Territory, the daughter of Matthew and Anna (Waldhart) Andres. Following her high school graduation, Emma went to work in her father's tobacco store at 125 N. Cortez, stripping tobacco and making cigars.
Magazines carried in her father's store expanded her horizons and inspired her artistic talents toward painting and quilt making. She made many beautiful, original quilts, all pieced and quilted in the Andres Cigar Store while waiting on customers. She won awards in 1919 for tatting specimen, tatting edge or insertion and tatting several years before she started quilt making.
About 1933 Emma began to make a quilt to lighten the tedium of life in a cigar store. She was interviewed for an article appearing in The Galveston News May 7, 1943 stating she made quilts for fun, picking up the work whenever the spirit moved her. She was convinced that if you piece a quilt you should go ahead and quilt it. “I hired the quilting done on one of my quilts, and I never did feel as though it belonged to me. In fact, I gave it away,” she said.
She was quoted in the Arizona Republic on May 11, 1952, as saying: “The hobby of quilt making evidently has satisfied for me a certain desire for color in creating original Designs. It's the art in quilts and not their usability that has played the major part in my making and enjoying them. Quilting on a quilt is like the frosting on a cake, and to my mind that's an important part of quilt making.” Through this hobby several good causes have benefited. Miss Andres exhibited the quilts to aid the Prescott Community Hospital, Boys' Town ( her scrapbook includes letters written by the late Father Flanagan), the Red Cross, Yarnell Shrine and the church hall of Sacred Heart Church. She exhibited also at the Monday Club and the Methodist Church in Prescott and in Williams. Her quilts have been seen by crowds at the Arizona State Fair and the Yavapai County Fair. Main benefits of this and other hobbies --building a museum of curious objects, keeping treasure scrapbooks, painting, letter writing, and rock hunting-- are listed by Miss Andres as the acquiring of a liberal education, creation of shock absorbers against some of the more serious experiences in life, and the establishing of grand contacts. "If strangers," she adds, "after being in the store and museum go away with a little more friendly feeling for Prescott, that is something money cannot buy."
In 1984, Emma was awarded the first Arizona Quilt Artisan Award for her unique art form. Following the death of her mother in 1963, Emma converted her father's store into the "Andres Memorial Museum," later "Emma's Happiness Museum," where she exhibited her quilts, dolls and art work.
Until her move to the Arizona Pioneers' Home in 1984, she resided in the family home at 120 W. Carleton Street. Emma was an active member of the Sacred Heart Church and was known to many Prescottonians for her generous, kindhearted deeds, having helped many people during unfortunate times.
Emma died April 28, 1988, and was buried in Mountain View Cemetery. Emma’s mother, Anna (Waldhart) Andres, is also represented in the Territorial Women’s Memorial Rose Garden.
Donor: Mark Tetreau
Photo Location: RGC MS-39, Box A, F-Andres, Emma (PO-2571p) – Accession #97.083
Updated: 3/26/2015; D. Sue Kissel
