Redford? Check. Newman? Check. MacLain? Check.



February 11, 2026



Categories

Yes, that is Robert Redford’s signature. Scroll to the bottom for more photos.

A quilt that sold at the annual gala brought in $1,500, but after learning more about its history, it maybe should have sold for a heckuva lot more.

District 30 democrats hosted the Region 6 districts for the 2026 Sweetheart Gala at the Apple Creek Country Club on Saturday, February 7, following the district conventions from earlier in the day.

Donated for Saturday’s event by Susan Hochhalter, the quilt’s most recent owner (up until Saturday when it sold to its new, unnamed owner), Hochhalter shared an older typewritten 4-page letter from the 1980s that documents the quilt’s history: In 1978, the District 32 Dem-NPL group mailed out square swatches of fabric to prominent North Dakota and national Democrats inviting them to sign their name on the fabric and mail it back with a $5 or $10 contribution. The pitch was that their signature would be included on the quilt along with big name Democrats.

When the swatches were returned, each signature was then carefully stitched in thread over each actual signature, matching it exactly, before assembling all the squares into the quilt. District 32 then sold the quilt in a Dutch auction – where the auctioneer starts at a high price and gradually lowers it until a person bids and accepts the price. At that event, Quentin and Sheila Retterath won and then donated it back to the district. The quilt was then sold at a Bismarck citywide Democratic-NPL auction where two state officials – Ailsa Simonson and Jonathan Weisbach – who had been disputing about the consolidation of agencies, got into a bidding war and Simonson, the then director of the State Laboratories, outbid Weisbach, the then State Health Officer. Then, in 1980, Simonson donated the quilt to Austin Engel’s campaign for State Auditor. Engel did not find the time or opportunity to convert the quilt to cash in that campaign and put the quilt away for a future campaign.

The history document does not include information about the quilt after 1980 nor does it name the person or people who stitched the signatures and sewed the quilt.

The quilt, approximately 6 ft x 7 ft, contains 139 signatures, many of which read as a who’s who of local, state, and national Democratic history – some of them prominent in their era but now being lost to time. A center swatch on the quilt says, “Democrats 1978 NPL”.

Among the signatures on the quilt that many would say are still carry national recognition are Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Shirley MacLain, Ted Kennedy and Thomas (Tip) O’Neill, Jr.

However, nearly every name is worthy of a web search for a micro-history lesson of notable local, statewide, and national Democrats around that time. For example, Dixy Lee Ray, described as “ridiculously smart,” was a conservative Democrat from the state of Washington with a long string of notable accomplishments under her belt including that state’s first female governor, a significant scientific career, a TV entertainment career, an appointee by President Richard Nixon to the US Atomic Energy Commission, among a list of many other things.

Here is the complete list of signatures on the quilt, alphabetically by last name:

Aas, Doris M.
Abzug, Bella (U.S. House of Representatives)
Ailsa (Simonson)
Bakken, Glen
Berg, Rep. Gordon (District 15)
Bergland, Allan
Braun, Barbara C.
Boschee, Milbert and Emilie
Byrd, Robert Carlyle (U.S. Senate)

Carlson, Selma
Carter, Lillian G., Plains, Georgia
Christiansen, Walt
Church, Frank, U.S. Senate
Clancy, Lynn
Conrad, Dean L.
Conrad, Kent
Coons, Shirley
Curtiss, Pat
Decker, Anita K.
Denne, Celestine
Didier, Catherine
Dockter, Grace
Dockter, Wallace J.
Docter, Walter L.
Dunlop, Clay L.
Dunn, Adrian

Edgeton, Bruce W.
Ehrmantraut, Mary
Engel, Austin
Erdman, Walter C. (Senator, District 6)
Erickson, Les and Lin
Eriksmoen, Terry
Fossum, Helen

Gallagher, Sharon
Gaukler, George
Grinsteiner, Eugene

Halmrast, Jerry and Bev
Hanson, Bob E.
Harmon, Leonard
Harsche, Linda
Hawley, Jim
Heinrich, Bonnie Miller
Heinrich, Willis
Herslip, Larry
Hesford, Tom and Carolyn
Hetherington, Malcom and Hilda
Higgens, Kent
Hight, Arlyne
Hill, Deanna
Hoffner, Buckshot (District 12)
Hoffner, Serenus
Holden, Arnold
Humphrey, Muriel (U.S. Senate)

Ista, Richard (ND State DemNPL Chairman)

Jackson, Henry M. (U.S. Senate)
Jemtrud, Alve
Jennings, Loretta
Jensen, David T.
Just, Myron

Kennedy, Brad
Kennedy, Edward M. (U.S. Senate)
King, Gorman
Knutson, Bernice
Knutson, Byron
Knutson, Donna
Knutson, Harmony and Becky
Knutson, Karen G.
Koski, Roger A.
Kubishiak, Marjorie
Kucera. Shirley J.
Kusler, James O.

Lange, Norbert
Lee, David
Lien, Alvhild
Lien, Tilmer
Link, Arthur A., Governor
Link, Walt and Elda
Lokken, Richard

MacLaine, Shirley
Maixner, Jacqie
Maixner, Rick
Maluski, John

McCarthy, Eugene (U.S. Senate)
McGovern, George (Candidate for President)
McKinney, Art
McPherson, Robert R.
Meyer, Ann
Meyer, Mary Ann
Miller, Liz
Mills, Betty
Moll, Ron
Muskie, Ed (U.S. Senate)
Myhre, Madonna
Myhre, Russell J.

Nelson, Rob
Ness, Pat
Nodland, Irv
Nodland, Lois

O’Neill, Thomas T., Jr. (Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives)
Ostenson, Dwayne

Palmer, Dick
Phillips, Cindy
Proxmire, Bill (U.S. Senate)

Ray, Dixy Lee
Reber, Wally
Redford, Robert
Ripplinger, Laura J.
Ripplingler, Leon B.
Rustand, Steve

Sahli, Teresa C.
Samuelson, Jean
Sandeen, Tom
Sanstead, Wayne G., Lt. Gov., ND
Satrom, Joseph
Schmidt, Vince
Schneider, Joyce R.
Snortland, Howard J.
Suemper, Lela
Summers, Jane F.