Christmas time has become creativity time for Kelly Morrison.
The West Liberty Middle School physical education teacher has a knack for creating powerful holiday window displays and has kept a 40+-year-old tradition at the Wuestenberg Agency in downtown West Liberty flourishing every holiday season.
This year, Morrison said she got help everywhere she asked in putting together a colorful, nostalgic postal card/letters to Santa themed display that may be some of her best work yet at 120 East Third Street in the heart of the business district.
She calls it a community effort, but really it’s her drive and Christmas spirit that motivates help from the community when she needs it. This year, it was retiring West Liberty postal clerk Pam Wever who pulled through with some of her own collection of postcards, that helped create the popular window display that goes up every year right before the community’s annual Christmas Open House before Thanksgiving.
Jan Fulwider, who is a co-owner and customer service agent with her husband Bob in the insurance agency, says the windows were started in 1983, just shortly after the 109-year-old agency moved down the street to 115 East Third Street.
Arlene Keith, who had a flower and gift shop in West Liberty wanted to do something special for the holiday open house, even though the agency opened their doors every year to the community with treats and drink. She realized their counter could make a unique display and put together the first array of holiday Christmas trees, adding antique toys that included Ft. Apache, JJ’s toy kitchen set, a cash register, electric football and basketball games in the original box, as well as a red glider sled.
Getting help sometimes from other resources like Melody Henderson, Keith followed with displays that featured JJ’s stuffed bears (JJ is Bob’s sister), a family doll collection, model farm scene featuring John Deere tractors and equipment, Jack Danforth’s car collection, snowflake decorations and Linda Pearson’s rocking horses.
The tradition moved from the inside counter to a window display kept alive for years and the community looked forward to what the agency was going to surprise everyone with in their window every year.
In early 2009, the unthinkable happened when the Fulwiders lost their only son, Dan, to cancer at the age of 34. He was a proud political science graduate of Iowa State University.
With that news, Jan wanted to end the tradition. That’s when Morrison stepped in and said, “No, you’re going to continue this tradition.” That year, she put together a basketball theme in honor of Dan Fulwider, a youth basketball coach in Ames.
“She’s amazing,” said Jan Fulwider, whose happy the window tradition continues, noting this year’s “Letters to Santa” postcard display features special old time mail boxes including the historic red letters to Santa box that welcomed unstamped mail in the West Liberty Post Office for years.
Morrison said she gained interest in the agency’s holiday window when her mom, Joan Morrison, was asked to display part of her angel collection that dated back to 1952 in the window one year. Kelly helped make that happen.
Since, Morrison has put together some incredible displays featuring angel collections, the Chicago Cubs the year they won the world series, penguins, holiday books, silver bells, Christmas villages, train sets utilizing the Polar Express movie theme, miniature nativity scenes and even a car theme, utilizing a classic car owned by Jeff Putney and parked at the agency the night of the open house. One year, she even honored her own 50th birthday, finding “all things 50.”
She also comes through annually with some kind of a handout – this year postal cards – that fans of the window can keep.
Morrison won’t let Jan get involved and typically doesn’t even reveal the theme to the Fulwiders until it’s in place, many times working late into the night. “That’s when my creativity is the best,” she says.
Morrison also takes suggestions from the community to make the display even better, noting there have been times she’s working late on the window when a movie lets out at the Strand Theatre and she’ll get ideas from students to make the window better.
It’s become a quest every year to come through with a theme, this one inspired by her own family who had postcards they didn’t want any more. But when she connected with Wever, the idea flourished, also getting help from Marla Hillyer, Amy Putney, Nancy Schaapveld as well as Rich and Ella Hambright.
Always active in the schools and community as a volunteer, Morrison says it’s become a community project and suggestions not only come to her but sometimes to Jan at the Wuestenberg Agency.
“This is an amazing community,” Morrison said, noting any time she seems to need something for that year’s display, citizens pull through. “It can be kind of comical at times,” she says of the unusual ways she finds things she needs.
The display will remain in tact until after Christmas Day, tearing it down typically before the New Year holiday.