Jefferson woman’s miniature village getting bigger
Janet Crouse stands next to her Christmas Village display inside her home in Jefferson. The display features more than 30 pieces, including churches, houses, a lighthouse and ship, windmills, hot-air balloons, numerous places of business and even a merry-go-round and a small train. (Photo by Dave Zuchowski)
Janet Crouse stands next to her Christmas Village display inside her home in Jefferson. The display features more than 30 pieces, including churches, houses, a lighthouse and ship, windmills, hot-air balloons, numerous places of business and even a carousel (in insert) and a small train.
Dave Zuchowski
As a child growing up, Janet Crouse of Jefferson liked to watch the Lionel train displays her brothers set up for Christmas. But it wasn’t until 1994, when a friend from Rices Landing gave her a miniature church as a Christmas gift, that she started a display of her own.
“I enjoyed the church so much, that same Christmas I bought two miniature houses and displayed them on a cedar chest I had,” she said.
Through the years, she’s bought more of the miniatures, most as big as a two-slot toaster, anywhere she could find them. She started with purchases made at G.C. Murphy’s until it closed. Because her birthday is on Dec. 7, she often got them as gifts from her husband, Barry, her children, John, Melodie and Michelle, and her sister, Ruth Niedermier.
As the collection grew in size, she moved the display from the cedar chest to a card table then to a plywood platform painted white and covered with white batting on top to resemble snow.
At the moment, her collection, which she calls her Christmas Village, numbers 30 or more pieces, including four churches, numerous houses, a lighthouse and ship, two windmills, two hot-air balloons and numerous places of business such as a tea shop, bank and a restaurant. There’s even a merry-go-round that plays music and a small train that chugs along an elliptical track.
“The collection includes several different brands, but I like to stick with buildings from the Victorian era,” she said.
A year after she first started her collection, she began photographing her display and has done so every year since, except for an occasional miss. Usually the display goes up at the beginning of November and stays up until the end of February.
“Because I knew I was having surgery on my leg on Nov. 13, I started putting the display together at the end of October this year,” she said.
Housed on top of a plywood platform in the basement of her home, the little miniature town is full of activity. Children play in the snow, deer come to nibble on the carrot noses of two snowmen, townspeople go about their business. And, with the flip of two electrical switches, everything lights up in a sparkling display of color.
“I like to make the display look as much like a town as possible,” she said. “I add parks, ice skating rinks and a sledding area for kids and try to position things differently each year.”
When asked if she had a favorite piece, she thought long and hard, then admitted it was the castle, a piece she’d first seen in the window of Jo-Ann Fabrics. It was her husband, Barry, that bought a new one for her. She also likes the fiber-optic pieces because they change different colors, but they are hard to get.
While she likes to sit in a chair in the basement and ponder her display, she also invites friends and family to take a look at her pride and joy. All of her six grandchildren have seen the display and have come to love it. Granddaughter Harlie, now 12, used to like to take the people figurines for a ride on her bicycle and still likes to reposition things when grandma isn’t looking.
“This year, I told everyone not to buy anything new for the display, because it’s a lot of work putting it up and taking it down, which takes about three weeks on each end,” she said.
Her husband already violated her request by buying her a grain mill for her birthday at the beginning of the month.
After the display is dismantled, storage is another problem. Most of the miniatures have boxes with photos so she knows which goes where. After everything is tucked away in their proper box, she stores everything under the basement stairs until the following November, when the entire process starts all over again.
“Christmas is my favorite holiday, especially for its religious aspect,” she said. “In addition to setting up the display, I decorate every room in the house and put Christmas bedspreads I made myself on the beds.”
Every year, she and her husband and some of the family like to go to Oglebay Park in Wheeling, W.Va., where they spend the day visiting the zoo, taking in the glass museum and driving through the spectacular light display in the evening. And even though she’s recovering from leg surgery, she plans to see the light show at Kennywood Park this season, even if she has to sit in a wheelchair to take it in.
With Christmas still a few days away, she and her husband are already making plans for next year’s display of her Christmas Village.
“I’m planning on adding more plywood boards to the platform so we can make the train display larger,” Barry said.