The Larry and Lyn Oz Collection

Scare Crow

Our home is going to feel a little empty soon, for just like always, kids will want to go away on their own to see the world.  But we are pleased that they are headed off to the same university that we attended.  Some of you may remember, they first visited to FHSU several years ago, and they stayed for quite a visit before returning home to grow up to be old enough to enroll.  The time has arrived!

For those of you who do not know what I am talking about, Larry and I began our Wizard of Oz Collection many years ago.  It took leaving Kansas to realize that when you get away from Kansas, and you introduce yourself someone is likely to say, "Do you know Dorothy? or Have you been in a tornado?"  Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz seem to be what people know best about Kansas. 

Realizing that we had been neglectful of the very thing people from around the world seem to know best about, we began our journey with The Wizard of Oz.  We decided that we must have been missing out on something important, and that is when we began collecting The Wizard of Oz.

Dorothy, Toto & Lion

It has been a lot of fun, and when we were invited to share our collection several years ago with the library at FHSU, our collection took it's first trip to Hays.  It was there that we began talking about just when Scare Crow, Tin Man, Lion, and Dorothy would be old enough to go away from home alone.  

We did not think that it would take that long, but finally they are old enough to go off on their own to the university, and their home will be in the newly named Tebo Library at FHSU.  

Their surroundings will make them feel quite at home, for all of the Oz collection is going with them.  Their new home will be in the Larry and Lyn Fenwick Reading Room.  The grand opening is still not entirely settled--which I am sure pleases them, since it always takes a little time to get everything in place for guests.  

Tin Man

The Reading Room hours are generally Monday through Friday, 9 am to noon, and 1 pm to 4 pm on days when the University is open.  Walk-ins are welcome, but you know how people are, especially ladies like Dorothy, who would appreciate that you make an appointment.  

Our children aren't selfish, and they will be hosting other people there doing research.  

The new Library is impressive, and the precise date of the complete opening is still not definite, but as you can imagine, Dorothy and the Boys are excited.   

Larry and I are busy now getting all of the other things in our collection ready to load and on their way to Hays.  Of course, everyone is excited about the trip, and we are grateful to a friend to help get the complete collection on its way.  

All of the dolls were designed and made by Lyn Fenwick.

Decorating for Christmas

When I was a child, we always had a freshly cut tree, usually bought at the grocery store.  I still cherish memories of decorating the family tree together, and I miss the fresh cut smell that filled the house.  

When my husband and I married, we lived in a trailer house, and there was no room for a tree.  The first real Christmas tree, with ornaments of our own, was in our apartment near the military base, where my husband served in the Air Force.  Year by year, our collection of ornaments grew, and we added many on trips, bringing home ornaments as souvenirs.  As our holiday collection increased, we got bigger trees, and eventually we decorated more than one tree.  When we lived in large cities, I loved shopping in stores the day after Christmas, when decorations were marked down in price.  Gradually our holiday collections expanded.

I love decorating for holidays--Halloween, Thanksgiving, Easter--but Christmas is the best.  This year we have three full-size trees and one rather large tabletop tree, as well as decorations on every surface I can find!  My husband suggested that I be satisfied with two trees this year, but I insisted on a third tree, and this year, it is the Oz tree.  When we lived in other states, we were often asked jokingly if we knew Dorothy, or if we had been in a tornado.  Most people did not know much about Kansas, but they knew about the Wizard of Oz.  

Just for fun, I set Scare Crow, Tin Man, Cowardly Lion, and Dorothy near the tree to share the holiday with us. 

For a few days we will be sharing our home with not only the Oz characters but also angels and snowmen and Santa Clauses and characters from the Nutcracker, and best of all, with friends and family.  

Best wishes and happy holidays!

Happy Holidays Around the World!

Christmas 2014

I realize that the holiday season is not a happy time everywhere in the world this year.  Perhaps it rarely is happy everywhere.  

Yet, I want to use this post to send holiday greetings to the many followers of my blog around the world.  It has been a surprise and a delight to me that readers in other countries enjoy my blog.  I cannot discern which blogs appeal to particular nationalities, but the popularity among countries fluctuates.  It pleases me to see that at least some of my blogs have a universal appeal.

"Christmas Guests," 12-13-2012 in blog archives

 

 Buone Feste, sretni blagdani, Joyeuses Fetes, Frohe Feiertage, felices Fiestas, Boas festas, Sarbatori Fericite, Priecigus svetkus, bayraminiz kutlu olsun, Glad helg, Wesolych Swiat, Selamat Bercuti, Selamat Hari Raya, and Happy Holidays to all those for which my key board could not provide symbols (and my apologies for my poor script and for the lack of proper accent symbols for some of the greetings given.)  I appreciate your following my blogs!

 

As past blogs have indicated, remodeling has kept us from putting up a tree this year.  (See "Collections and Creations," 12-4-2014 to read about our Angels and Ancestors Tree at the Vernon Filley Art Museum during the 2014 holidays.)  

"Isaac & the Wizard of Oz," 12-15-2011 blog archives

Our decorating for the holidays this year has been confined to the poinsettia plant my husband gave me and one lonely black haired angel.  When I was a little girl, I noticed that most pictures of angels depicted them with golden hair, and my little friends with blond hair were more likely to be chosen as angels in school and church programs than I was.  So, if I have a choice, I enjoy adding brown and black haired angels to my collection.  I also enjoy seeing angels with different skin colors and eye shapes for sale today, because I remember my own feelings as a child to never see angels who looked like me.

Our red & gold tree in 2011

For our first four Christmases after we married, college expenses allowed no spare money for a tree, nor did our tiny living quarters offer any room.  My father went into the tree belt at the farm one year while we were home for Thanksgiving to cut a cedar tree branch, which my mother secured in a coffee can wrapped in tin foil, loaning us a few Christmas balls from their own decorations.  That was our only holiday "tree" while we were in college.  When we could finally afford a tree we chose a color scheme of red and gold.  We bought a box each of red and gold balls, two gold plastic angels and one red hobby horse.  Over the years afterward, at least one holiday ornament was purchased whenever we took a trip, and more ornaments were added from the various places we lived.  Each ornament was documented on the bottom or back with the place and year it was acquired.  Putting up the tree was an opportunity to recall fun vacations and former homes.

Our Wizard of Oz tree with dolls I made

After we began the collections for the Angels and Ancestors Tree, the gold and red ornaments were ignored for a few holidays.  In 2011, we decided to display our collection of red and gold ornaments and other decorations.  It was fun to remove each one from the box and revive the memories.  (You may visit my Christmas blog "Happy Holidays," at 12-12-13 in the archives, which shares images from Isaac's era.)

Last week's blog, "Flour Mills on the Prairie," 12-18-2014, shares my Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz dolls I made one Christmas.  Obviously we enjoy decorating and entertaining during the holidays, and the Wizard of Oz tree is always fun.

For us, the holidays are about family and friends.  We look forward to cards from those who live far away, and we love seeing friends and family nearby, especially sharing the food and spirits of the season.  To all of you who follow my blog, "Thank you!"  I hope you have become fond of the old Prairie Bachelor, Isaac B. Werner, and I also hope the New Year brings me time to turn my attention back to Isaac in order to find a publisher for the neglected manuscript.  Happy Holidays!

Isaac Sees First Tornado

When our careers took my husband and me away from Kansas, we quickly learned what many people's impression of our home state was. When they learned we had been born and raised in Kansas, they were likely to ask, "Have you ever seen a tornado?" Today, sport's fans might be more inclined to comment on Kansas University basketball or Kansas State University football, but the Wizard of Oz has definitely left the impression with many people that Kansas is the land of tornadoes.

In fact, I have never seen a tornado, and I hope I never do. Kansas is not even in the top three states with the most reported tornadoes, those being Oklahoma, Texas and Florida. Every state has a reported tornado on record, although for a few states, tornadoes are extremely rare. The Great Plains is frequently called 'Tornado Alley,' and the states in the Mid-West with the greatest number of tornadoes are Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota. During 2011 severe tornadoes struck states where that seemed an unexpected weather phenomena.

Isaac came to Kansas to stake his claim in 1878, yet it was a decade before he saw his first tornado. On May 9, 1888, he wrote in his journal,"Clouds gathering over S. of us and a 'Twister' down S.E., the first I seen, a tapering white sock hanging down, slanting from clouds and in a mere streak connecting down to ground raising the dust at time[s] then raising & vanishing & moving on down again & renewing the dark dust funnel." The tornado disappeared before coming near Isaac's homestead and timber claim, but the power and potential for destruction left a lingering impression with Isaac, for he later wrote,"One looks for 'Twisters' now at any cloud raising."

If Isaac had been living on his homestead in May of 2007, he would surely have seen the nest of tornadoes that hung from the clouds over three nights of destruction in his community. Homes were destroyed, lives were lost, and the small city of Greensburg about twenty-five miles to the southwest was nearly obliterated. Although Greensburg dominated the news reports, the rural area around my childhood home also suffered two deaths and severe property damage.

Tornadoes are certainly frightening, but they are also quirky in their destruction. Recently I took this photograph of two tree rows on opposite sides of a road. The edge of the 2007 tornado can be seen from the destruction of the tree belt on the east side of the road, while the tree belt on the west side was practically untouched. Devastation or survival may be the result of a distance of only a few feet. Many groves and rows of trees in our community are little more than mutilated remants of once stately shelter belts.

About a mile to the south of the tree rows, the home of our friends was destroyed, along with the farm equipment and the metal grain bins of their farming operation. Metal from those grain bins, and from the bins and metal buildings of other farms, was carried by the tornadoes for miles, driven into tree trunks and buried in fields to ruin tractor tires, unless sharp-eyed farmers spot the protruding metal. Perhaps the piece of heavy metal wrapped around the guywire of this pole to create a piece of nature's art from tragedy came from our friends' farm several miles to the south. The force of the whirling tornado bent the metal around the guywire like a sheet blowing on a clothes line.

The pasture posts topped with old boots extend in both directions for a quarter of a mile or so--just a bit of rural whimsy for passersby to enjoy.

May of 2008 also brought serious injuries and loss of property from tornadoes in our community. Although winter is the likely time for tornadoes in the South, it is spring when Kansans make sure the NOAA (National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's weather alert) is plugged into an outlet and the storm shelter has been sprayed to get rid of spiders and is stocked with candles, matches, flashlights, blankets, and maybe a gallon of water and some packaged peanut butter crackers--just in case. It was May when Isaac saw his first tornado, and luckily for him, he never saw another.