The sampler has six rows of alphabets separated by decorative crossbands. It has a surrounding symmetric border and at the bottom are several motifs including what may be a stylized fish and a flower arrangement. The signature reads:
Worked by Jessie Tipton.
at St Catherines Academy. 1864

Jessie Gates Tipton was born on April 21, 1852, in Mt Sterling, Montgomery County, Kentucky, when her father, Samuel Edwards Tipton (1817-1907), was thirty five years old, and her mother, Louisa Sneed Wilkerson (1825-?)(m. February 24, 1844), was twenty seven. The family had removed to Bourbon, County, Kentucky by 1860, where Samuel was a rather prosperous merchant in Paris, Kentucky.  He advertised in The Western Citizen newspaper of Paris, Bourbon County, Kentucky of the 1860s as "S E TIPTON & CO MERCHANT TAILORS" in the Paris Hotel Building providing custom-made gentlemen's clothing which described Tipton as "a veteran cutter." (See the ancillary image from page 2 of the Western Citizen Newspaper, Paris, Bourbon County, KY Friday, Dec. 1, 1865.) In 1865 he purchased the Planters' Hotel in Owensboro, but per 1866 advertisements, retained his business in Paris, Kentucky.

Jessie had at least one sibling, Edward Apperson (1855-1930).

Jessie married David C. Parish (1850-1934) on September 27, 1877 in Bourbon County, Kentucky. They had two children, Louise Hanson (1878-1968) and Marie Lowry (1880-1913).

Jessie Gates Tipton died on September 11, 1922, in Paris, Bourbon County, Kentucky, at the age of seventy years old.