By JULIE CARLE
BG Independent News
The Pember-Furry House is considered the oldest frame house in Pemberville. Built sometime between about 1830 and 1856, the house is at least 150 years older than the four Eastwood High School teens who are tasked with decorating it for Pemberville’s Christmas in the Village event this weekend.
Camille Foos, Brynn Sheets, Raegan Russell and MacKenzie Chaffee are the youth who have been challenged by Beeker General Store owner Todd Sheets to decorate the old house.
Todd Sheets decided to switch up the plans for decorating the house that is named for James Pember, who built the house and founded Pemberville, and Jacob H. Furry, the home’s longest owner.
Usually, the home is decorated by members of the Pemberville-Freedom Historical Society.
“I loved the idea of the young decorating the old,” Sheets said about choosing the four longtime friends for the design challenge.
They are in many of the same extracurricular activities, including Key Club, FFA, track, cross-country, and Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Camille said. Their shared experiences in these groups fostered a strong collaborative and creative bond, which they applied to the house decoration project.
Absent a designated theme for the holiday décor, their goal was to create an authentic “vintage Christmas” atmosphere reflecting the late 1800s to early 1900s, consistent with the age of the house, Camille said.
“We didn’t live during that time, so we didn’t really know what decorations they used,” Brynn said.
For their research, they scoured photographs, asked family members about ancestral traditions, and MacKenzie admitted they spent a lot of time on Pinterest looking at vintage decorations.
“I liked looking up the history and seeing what we needed to make,” Brynn said.
Because the house is rather bare bones or sparsely decorated, the girls decided to stick with a minimalistic concept.
“In our research, we found out there were different levels of classes,” Brynn said.
“I think this isn’t a very ritzy house,” Raegan said. “It’s more of just lower class, middle class.”
And because of that, the team decided they would not decorate with a lot of gifts.
They relied on resourcefulness rather than a budget, using mostly items and materials they had on hand.
Because they share a creative vibe, they opted to DIY many of the decorations. For the inside Christmas tree, they strung popcorn, dehydrated oranges, and made paper chains from coffee-stained music sheets to make them look antique. At the time of the interview, they were still working on ideas for a second tree that would be outside.
They added some personal family heirlooms to some of the six decorated spaces. Raegan discovered some sewing items from her father’s Great-grandmother Metcalf. They incorporated some of the found Christmas fabric, bows, and antique lace that had a “Noel” design, as well as other personal family heirlooms.
In the kitchen area, which is immediately inside the house, they created a cookie-baking scene with metal cookie cutters and some fake cookie dough. There will be a tray of “cookies” ready to go into the oven. On a baby’s highchair in the kitchen area, they displayed a partially eaten “cookie” and some crumbs.
Downstairs, there is also a piano that displays an old copy of a Christmas carols music book, inviting visitors to sing a favorite carol.
Upstairs, in the children’s space, “We’re going to have Christmas lists written and a few presents scattered,” Raegan said. “We will have their toys upstairs and obviously, some books by their beds.”
“We have some Christmas children’s books up there as well as some Bibles,” Camille said, since Christmas was more about religion than it was about Santa.
“We had to make sure the publishing dates were appropriate to the time period,” she added.
The four friends worked together on every aspect of the project. They moved through the house as a single creative unit and made decisions jointly.
“It was fun to be with each other and get an opportunity just to decorate this old house,” MacKenzie said.
“I really like Christmas,” Camille said about agreeing to the project. “It’s a cool opportunity to be able to relive the olden Christmas. I really like the meaning for the season.”
“There is something special about preserving history, and us being the younger generation reliving the older generation,” she said.
The project evolved from a fun, creative task to a lesson in history and empathy. They agreed that interacting with history provided a valuable perspective and appreciation for modern life.
As the youngest group to take on the task, Raegan was happy to be a “good example for kids younger than us, knowing they can do the same thing and have fun with it.”
They will wrap up the decorating by Thanksgiving in time for the opening of Pemberville’s Christmas in the Village on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 6 p.m. Members of the historical society will greet visitors.
Read more about Pemberville’s Christmas in the Village here.
