Ten Years of Ornaments

Barbara Bicker of Fish Creek is a woman who likes a challenge. About 10 years ago, libraries in the Door County system were asked what they’d do with a $10,000 gift.

Barbara and her husband, Keith, both retired teachers, are strong supporters of the Fish Creek Library, and she decided to see how much money she, personally, could raise to benefit the library.

Decades earlier, Barbara had learned from her aunt, Dorothy Oberholzer, how to make felt Christmas ornaments adorned with sequins. They were popular with family, friends and neighbors, but she’d never considered selling them.

She asked librarian Holly Somerhalder if it would be all right to place a basket of her cherry ornaments on a table at the library’s annual book sale to see if they would sell. It was, and they did!

Barbara now makes about three-dozen types of ornaments by hand. They average three to four inches high and are stuffed to make them three-dimensional. Especially popular are the ones with cherries and cardinals.

“I was surprised when I sold out of the cardinals the first year,” she says, “but then I realized how many Missouri license plates I see in Door County. So they’re cardinal lovers, and there’s a college in Illinois whose mascot is a cardinal, too.”

Her personal favorites are Santas, and she makes six different kinds. For a while after she began making ornaments specifically to benefit the library, she sold them in local shops. Now they’re available only at the library’s annual book sale.

This year’s sale was special for two reasons. First, Barbara sold $705 worth of ornaments in one day, putting her 10-year total at more than $15,000. Second, a man stopped by her kiosk and told her he’d had some very similar ornaments for years. As he described them – Pinocchio, Geppetto and Jiminy Cricket – Barbara felt sure they had been made by her late aunt. “It was a nice connection,” she says.

Although she’s been encouraged to charge more, Barbara has never raised the $4 price of the ornaments. “I’d rather sell more,” she says. What began as a few ornaments in a basket has grown to include more than 175 of them displayed on a kiosk. Barbara loves the fact that many of her customers come back year after year to see what’s new – she tries to add three or four new designs each summer – and to add to collections for their children and grandchildren.

Barbara has a “legacy box” of 60 ornaments that she’s made for each of her five grandchildren, and hopes to add 15 more to each collection. “I’m a little behind with that,” she admits, “because I sold so many at the book sale this year.”

Barbara says that it’s not unusual for women to take pictures of her ornaments.

“I don’t mind,” she says. “I get ideas from all over, too. I’ve been known to buy an ornament, take it apart to see how it’s made and reassemble it.”

As a former reading teacher, it’s only natural that she would have a strong relationship with the library.

“One of the reasons I keep doing this,” she says, “is that I enjoy so much working with Holly. And this place means so much to everyone. It’s not just a library, but a gathering place for the community.”

“It’s been a real blessing to the library to have someone so generous with her time and money,” Holly says. “We’ve been using the money Barbara gives us for children’s books and equipment for the children’s room.

One more thing: six years ago, Barbara was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. It hasn’t slowed down her production of Christmas ornaments. In fact, she says that sewing calms the tremors in her hands.