A Christmas Story For Children

A Christmas Story For Children

This is a Christmas story strictly for children.

Grown-ups may read it if they like, but it's not written for them, you see, because it’s a sort of a story-book tale come to life in Ann Arbor.

The old fairy books are filled with stories about carpenters, toymakers who liked children, and who gave of their time and their skill and their magic to make children happy. And Christmas, of course, is by unwritten law the day upon which children must be happy.

Works Magic Here

Well, Ann Arbor has a toymaker-carpenter of its own, who works magic in his small shop so that children may be happy at Christmas time. His shop, in the old tradition, is not very large, but it’s cheerful—any shop filled with toys would be cheerful.

His name is Albert Warnhoff, he lives at 311 S. Fifth Ave., and he was born in this city. For 25 years he has been making Christmas toys so that underprivileged children and sick children can be happy.

During the day, the toymaker-carpenter works from 7 o'clock to 6 o'clock. But when Christmas is only two or three months away, he enters his magic shop after his day’s work, and he spends long hours making doll sets and small furniture and mechanical toys.

Then, about a week before Christmas, he takes a lot of them up to University Hospital, and gives the rest of them to special cases with which he and his friends are acquainted.

More Than 60 Items

This year, he made more than 60 items, and 31 of them were three piece sets, each one consisting of a tiny table and two little chairs to match. He made big doll beds, decorated with teddy bears and ducks. He made four desk sets which can be used by small children. He made blocks, and mechanical toys which whir softly, pump up and down, or spin furiously.

And by next Monday, all these will be in the hands of children.

The toymaker-carpenter is modest about his gifts, which he calls his hobby. He is content to have the children believe that the toys come directly from Santa Claus, and he doesn't want his own name known.

But a real fairybook toymaker-carpenter is almost as important as Santa Claus himself. And so, although for 25 Christmases Mr. Warnhoff has managed to keep his name out of the newspaper, he isn't gong to get away with it this year.

TOYMAKER AT WORK: Albert Warnhoff, 311 1/2 S. Fifth Ave., uses his spare time to make Christmas toys for crippled and otherwise afflicted children. He was photographed at his workbench as he applied the finishing touches to a mechanical windmill. An unfinished windmill and some tables and chairs are also in the picture.