Love rules

Marilyn Jensen’s favorite ornament isn’t an ornament at all, but a metal five-inch ruler. But it has a place of honor on her Christmas tree each year.

The tarnished piece is engraved with the name “Bosy” and strung with a red ribbon through a hole drilled into the ruler.

The shop tool belonged to her father, Donald “Bosy” Bosman, a tool and die maker at Frank L. Wells company, where he worked for 40 years.

How the object came back into her life tells a story of friendship and destiny.

Jensen, of Kenosha, works at Tremper High School where Denise Hoff is one of her co-workers.

In 1997, Hoff found the ruler in her basement. It had belonged to her ex-husband, Jeff, who had once worked with Bosman.

When Hoff saw the engraving, she knew Jensen needed to have it, as Bosman had died in 1991. His death at the age of 64 was particularly hard on his daughter Marilyn.

Hoff made sure that she got Jensen’s name in the gift exchange and had someone in the technical education department drill a hole in the ruler so she could add the ribbon.

“I saw this long, thin box and thought, ‘it’s probably some jewelry or something’,” Jensen recalled. “I opened it up and all I saw was ‘Bosy’ and I lost it. I was sobbing, and nobody understood.”

Hoff hadn’t told anyone else about the ruler.

Jensen conjects that her father gave the ruler to Jeff as a memento when he left the company.

“It was just so special that she took that much time and this is probably the only thing I have of my Dad’s,” Jensen said.

Childhood enchantment

For Jackie Dean, of Kenosha, Christmas is all about tradition, and her ornament collection is steeped in memories.

“I remember being a little kid and laying under the tree and looking up at them,” she said.

She has been married to her husband, Milt, for nearly 39 years and began collecting Christmas ornaments in earnest when her mother-in-law gave her a collectable ornament.

Dean’s massive collection of several hundred ornaments covers four Christmas trees in their home and most have a story.

“It’s fun to decorate the tree. You remember who gave you what and what year that was. It makes that ornament meaningful,” Dean said.

But the ornament that holds the most meaning for her is a blast from the past that her father purchased when she was a child: a plastic one with an open bottom.

Inside the ornament is a horizontal pinwheel: when placed over a light, heat from the bulb makes it turn.

“I remember when he bought it and brought it home,” Dean said. “It found a special place on the tree every year.”

Light the way

When Carole Robbins’ parents Leonard and Alice Englund married in 1929, the first Christmas tree the couple decorated had a special ornament that Robbins still has today.

Made of metal, the “Tree Top Kristal Star” has glass points and is made with vents up the back so the light bulb inside wouldn’t overheat.

Robbins has the original box for the ornament, which reveals that it was made in Japan and cost the couple a whole 20 cents.

“Nobody would have kept it, but me,” Robbins said. “I had a brother who was a bachelor; he didn’t care.”

The Englund’s brought the ornament to their new south side home at 7929 26th Ave., which they purchased in 1930. The couple lived the remainder of their married lives there.

It went from Englund’s tree to Robbins’ tree many years later, when her mother died and her father’s health prevented him from living on his own.

Robbins said the ornament now has a special place at the top of her tree each year, although the light fixture no longer works.

She hopes to find a way to light the star once again.

Customer No. 52

When you ask Marilyn Stella what her favorite ornament is, she struggles to make a choice. That’s because her collection totals well over 1,000 pieces.

“I counted them last year when I put them away. There’s 1,000 pieces just on the tree in the living room, and there’s this tree here,” Stella says, pointing to a smaller tree in the dining room, “One out there and another downstairs.”

For 10 years, the Stellas owned Traditions, a furniture and boutique store in the Town-N-Country shopping center.

Stella stocked Christmas ornaments from around the world in her Christmas department. One of the store’s six trees stayed up all year around.

In the process, she became familiar with ornament makers in Russia, Italian, and Czechoslovakia.

“When Christopher Radko first started making ornaments, we were one of his first customers. Our customer number was No. 52,” Stella said. “He revitalized people collecting ornaments. I’ve always loved them. Some of those designs are priceless.”

Stella began collecting Radko ornaments over 20 years ago. Often when she ordered one for the store, she would order one for herself, too.

But her collection goes way beyond Radko designs. There are antiques, reproductions and highly collectable ornaments.

She arranges them on her tree in themed sections: nutcrackers, circus animals, Las Vegas dancing girls, angels, swans and snowmen, to name a few.

“It became an obsession,” Stella said with a laugh.

Why does she like this particular Radko ornament?

“Because it’s purple and I like purple so much,” she said.