Mary Ann Hodges, who worked this embroidery at the Moravian Seminary at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was the second child of Dr. Thomas Ramsey Hodges II and Deborah Berry Hodges of Maryland. Mrs. Hodges died after giving birth to the couple's third child in 1803. Approximately twelve years afterward, her daughter Mary Ann embroidered this memorial "To the Memory of a beloved Mother," whom she had known only as an infant. She took comfort in the belief that her loved one was, "Not lost...but gone before, Where joys prevail for ever [mo]re." The embroidery exhibits the solidly worked willow leaves and chain-stitched borders with clustered spangles characteristic of the Bethlehem school.