Shirley "Sam" Alps of Pineville has a large collection of Halloween decorations that she used to prepare for the fall holiday.
She has a collection of witches and a collection of pumpkins, both of which she has been collecting for 40 years, she said. She has a witch hat she made herself when she dressed like a witch to give out candy for the McDonald County Historical Society on the Pineville square. It weighs about five pounds, she said.
"I like unusual things," she said, introducing "Edgar Allan Crow," an anthropomorphic crow wearing a tie. She has a figurine of a jack-o'-lantern car being driven by cats in clown suits. A friend bought one of her witches at the Bella Vista Craft Fair. It is handmade of wood and hand painted. She has a Wicked Witch of the West figurine. She has Broomsnickle witches from Linda Lindquist Baldwin, who puts a coin in the bottom of her figurines.
Alps is also a quilter. She has just finished a witch quilt done in water-resistant inks and also has a pumpkin quilt on display that she hand-embroidered.
"I have many, many Halloween quilts that I've made over the years. They've been shown at the library and at the McDonald County Nursing Home," she said.
At the top of her staircase sits a large witch with blinking eyes that she will set on the front porch in October.
On her mantle are circus figurines with pumpkins -- a lion, a hippo, a monkey and a zebra.
For fun, she has a furry, big-eyed black cat that looks very cute but that bears fangs when you push on the side of his face.
She also has Halloween nutcrackers, including the Wicked Witch of the West.
No small detail is overlooked. She has a pumpkin coaster on her living room table. She also has Halloween dishes she will get out when Epsilon Sigma Alpha comes to her house for a meeting and dinner. ESA is a philanthropic organization that helps St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Alps had thought about not decorating as much for Halloween this year, but decided to go ahead and do it since ESA is coming for the October meeting.
She decorated outside her home with hay bales, pumpkins, mums and scarecrows. She said people will stop and set their kids on the hay bales and take a photo.
Asked why she loves Halloween so much, she replied, "I always have. I dress up every Halloween to greet the kids. People started giving me stuff, a pumpkin or a witch, and it just grew.
"I remember growing up in Pineville, we dressed up every Halloween. We didn't have money to buy a costume so we'd get in Mother's rag bag to see what she had. We'd go trick-or-treating with our brown paper sack. Our parents didn't go with us. We all went as a group of friends because we had no fears at that time in the '50s. We'd come home with a sack full of candy or apples."
Asked how she feels about trick-or-treaters, she said, "I like them. I'm ready for them. We didn't have many in Bella Vista when we lived there, but in Texas we had a bunch. I always know all my neighbor kids are going to stop by."
General News on 09/21/2017