How wonderful that you found this treasure!
It makes me so, so sad to think about all the work that went into this just to have it end up in a charity shop. Either it was an unwanted gift, or its creator passed away and the family had no use for it. Either way, it's sad. There is an elderly woman at my church that I help out once in a while, and she has several quilts her mother made (they may be a hundred years old by now, or close to it) that she doesn't know what to do with. None of her children or grandchildren want them.