Holiday train display holds decades of history for Hempfield family

Bill Bigelow can tell you the origin of every single item in his holiday train display.

The table, tucked into the back room of the single-story home Bigelow and his wife Susan share in Hempfield, is set up each year at the beginning of October. Strings of holiday lights and antique ornaments line the room and the table, bathing it in red and green.

At first glance, the display resembles an “I Spy” book, with colorful tiny toys and pocket-sized decorations arranged with care around two looping train tracks. One train plays the “Frosty the Snowman” theme, and another, a larger train modeled after a real train that came from from Susan’s hometown of Broad Top, runs along the outside.

The train was the first item to anchor the display back in 2011. Since then, Bigelow, 75, has added countless more items to the table — some artifacts from his childhood, some tchotchkes he’s picked up at antiques sales, and some handmade crafts of his own.

“When this started, it was like one thing, and then, I’m thinking, ‘This is what Christmas is about,’” he said. “Christmas is a time to show things … personal things. That’s what I think, anyway.”

The oldest items in Bigelow’s collection date back to the Civil War. A purse from a relative, who was born in 1878, hangs on a notch on the wall.

“A lot of things, we collected,” Susan said. “We figured, I am just going to put stuff (here) that means something to us.”

Bigelow adds new items to the collection every year. He built a covered bridge prop for the display, which resembles a famous covered bridge in Gettysburg. He recycled a piece of driftwood as a base for a Nativity display, which he proudly places at the corner of the table.

He sorts through the individual items to identify them, turning over a pair of his grandmother’s eyeglasses.

“I’m thinking that deserves to be on the table,” he said.

Some of his items have surprising lifelong connections. Two metal robot toys sit near the center of the table — the smaller of the two was Bigelow’s childhood toy, and the other is a nearly identical one that he found in an antiques store later in life.

“That one cannon there, I bought when I was in elementary school up in Ligonier,” he said. “I found the other cannon down in Adamsburg. I’m thinking, where are you going to find something like that?”

For the Bigelows, keeping antique toys and items alive holds a personal meaning.

“When our kids and grandkids come, they look at everything, and they ask Pap questions,” Susan said.

“It’s showing old things that are no longer seen anymore,” Bigelow said. “A lot of things like this will never be made again.”