Kathy Allen Duncan was a young newlywed in 1974 when she assembled her first snowman village in the apartment she shared with her new husband.
She would continue that Christmas tradition for the next 50 years, until she died in September at the age of 73 of complications from diabetes.
Now, her husband has taken all the snowman ornaments she collected over the course of their life together — more than 1,000 in total — and created a Christmas village display in her honour at the mall in their hometown of Topeka, Ka.
“I want everybody to have a piece of her,” Robert (Tuck) Duncan told As It Happens host Nil Köksal. “She was very giving in her life, and so this is just one more gift.”
Kathy’s love of snowmen — or snowpeople, as her husband calls them — was well-known, says Duncan.
Over the years, Duncan says, she would add more to her collection as people would give them to her as gifts.
In the end, he says, the family had 60 tote bags full of them in their garage.
“She just liked them,” he said. “They bring joy.”
Even her obituary, written by one of her three sons, memorializes her iconic holiday displays.
“Her love of Christmas shone through each season as she created an expansive Snowman Village, taking gentle care to recreate a distinct new scene from the year before, depicting the life of these frozen friends,” it reads.
“Serious contemplation occurred each year deciding which Snowpeople would make the cut!”
But this year, Duncan says, there was no narrowing it down. For the first time ever, her entire collection is on display in a rented store at Topeka’s West Ridge Mall.
Some snowpeople hang from a Christmas tree, and others are placed on tables. But most are nestled in an elaborate snow-covered village in the centre of the room, under the banner: “Kathy Allen Duncan’s Snowpeople Village.”
Nothing in the store is for sale, says Duncan, but everyone is welcome to come have a look and experience some holiday joy.
“Some people come in and spend a long time and talk with us, and other people come in just for a few minutes,” he said. “But they all walk out with smiles.”
Duncan has put up signs in the store with his late wife’s obituary, and QR codes for people to donate to Ballet Midwest, a dance organization Kathy was a longtime board member of, and the Cat Association of Topeka.
His late wife, he says, was an animal lover who always made sure to feed the squirrels outside her home. Her obituary jokes that “since there is no Topeka Squirrel Association, contributions [can] be made in Kathy’s honor to the Cat Association of Topeka.”
Debra King, a board member at the Cat Association, says she recently stopped by the mall to see the village in person, and was charmed by the “whimsical” collection.
“We have been honoured, and deeply grateful, to be one of the organizations receiving donations made in Kathy Allen Duncan’s memory,” she told CBC in an email.
“We feed the squirrels, and birds, via a variety of feeders outside a number of windows at the shelter so our cats can enjoy their antics. The donations help us to be able to continue to care for the substitute squirrel watchers that are carrying on her enjoyment of their shenanigans.”
Duncan says he’s taken great comfort in watching people interact with the village, especially as he moves through his first Christmas without his wife.
“They tell me there’s seven stages of grief and the seventh is acceptance, and I will concede I doubt I’ll ever reach the seventh stage,” he said. “But this has helped.”
When the holiday season is over, Duncan says he intends to gather up all the snowpeople and invite family members to come over and pick out their favourites to take home.
“Hopefully, you know, for the decades to come, they will have a little bit of Kathy’s spirit at Christmas time,” he said, choking back tears.
“It’s OK. I’m used to crying a lot these days.”
