Kiwanis holiday home tour well attended

By LeAnne Gompf -

Over 80 peo­ple enjoyed the Kiwa­nis his­tor­i­cal home tour this past Sat­ur­day rais­ing nearly $1000 for the club’s com­mu­nity projects.

Kiwa­nis is a global orga­ni­za­tion of vol­un­teer mem­bers ded­i­cated to chang­ing the world one child and com­mu­nity at a time. Each Kiwa­nis club achieves what one per­son can­not accom­plish alone.

The Mount Gilead Kiwa­nis sup­port the Dolly Parton’s Imag­i­na­tion Library; Heart­beat of Mor­row County; Pedi­atric Trauma/CHAD stick­ers; Fly­ing Horse Farms and Mor­row County Children’s Services.

The homes of this year’s tour included the home of Jim and Robin Brucker. The home orig­i­nally built in 1906 by Dr. Nathan Tucker and main­tains its orig­i­nal charm with oak hard­wood floors, two sets of pocket doors, tran­soms and two dou­ble man­tle fireplaces.

Ken and Sharry Cook also gra­ciously opened their Queen Anne style home. The home was built in 1896 for Robert and Martha Bartlett. Mrs. Bartlett’s fam­ily was cab­i­net­mak­ers by trade. Mr. Bar­lett was a Mount Gilead Grad­u­ate, served in the Union Army of Ohio and even­tu­ally returned to Mount Gilead where he prac­ticed law. In addi­tion, He was instru­men­tal in the effort to bring elec­tric­ity into the Mount Gilead area.

Again open­ing their home for the sec­ond year was Dan and Jan­ice Fehn. The rich his­tory of this home is what con­vinced the Fehns’ to pur­chase this home in 1999. Super­nat­ural occur­rences are part of the mys­tic that intrigues the cur­rent home­own­ers. The Fehn’s have expe­ri­enced a mischief-maker they have named “George” who they believe to be a for­mer owner of the home. – a lad­der posi­tioned on the side of the home fell for no appar­ent rea­son when remod­el­ing work began on the home, shut­ters that had been leaned up against the home were knocked down and lastly, while the Fenh’s were hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion about their next remod­el­ing ven­ture a pic­ture, a hang­ing in the hall­way fell from the wall. The home was taste­fully dec­o­rated from the period Victorian-era.

The 1920 home of David and Pam Spell­man boasted 19 themed Christ­mas trees includ­ing an Amer­i­cana, cookie cut­ter tree, and an angel and bird­house tree. As you entered the home the first tree you see was hang­ing upside down from the ceiling.

The last home on the tour was the quaint, hum­ble 1920 bun­ga­low of Joy Tschudi. The kitchen fea­tur­ing red gera­ni­ums and but­ter­cup col­ored retro-looking appli­ances were the favorites of the home tour guests.

In con­junc­tion with their home tour the Kiwa­nis held a com­mu­nity raf­fle. Tour coor­di­na­tors would like to thank the fol­low­ing indi­vid­u­als and busi­nesses for their con­tri­bu­tions: 8 Sis­ters Bak­ery; Janet Baugh­man; Mor­row Vision Cen­ter; Robin Brucker; Can­dle­wood Lake Asso­ci­a­tion LLC; Child Care Choices; Choco­lates and More LLC; Cor­ner­stone Café; Helen Far­ring­ton; First Fed­eral Sav­ing and Loan; First Know National Banl; Karen Galle­her; Gar­den and Gifts; Jodi Hayes; Hoff­man Office Cen­ter; Lindy Irons of A Cut Above; Keith’s Flower Shop; Diana Keplinger; Mary Lou Laskey; Mary K’s Flow­ers, Mor­row County Hos­pi­tal Gift Shop; Mor­row County Sen­tinel, Adri­en­nce Robin­son of Notable Nails, Kim Porter; Shopper’s Com­pass; The Briar Patch; Tidy Tim’s Car Was; and Pam Spell­man. If you would like to be con­sid­ered for future home tours please con­tact Diana Keplinger at 419–946-1803.

Posted by Randa Wagner on Dec 19 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.