Until recently, a framed embroidery of a flower bouquet hung on a wall in the Mary Baker Eddy Historic Home at 12 Broad Street, Lynn, Massachusetts. As the curatorial team from The Mary Baker Eddy Library for the Betterment of Humanity took inventory of the artifacts in the house, the embroidery was cataloged and photographed along with many other objects of interest. The staff noticed that the piece required immediate conservation work, and, in the future, would need to be stored at a more consistent temperature than the 125-year-old house could provide.
As curators searched for documentation showing where this particular piece came from, it came to light that the embroidery was considered to have been stitched by Mary Morse Baker as a young girl.
The piece was given to First Church of Christ, Scientist, Lynn-Swampscott, in 1945, by Mr. and Mrs. Bliss Knapp. Sometime during this period, The Christian Science board of Directors granted the Lynn branch church permission to use rooms in the Broad Street house as a Christian Science Reading Room. The embroidery subsequently hung in the Reading Room. When First Church, Lynn Swamspscott, vacated the rooms in the early 1950s, after the house had been restored as a historic home, the embroidery remained.
