Enlightening: Don Kirsch can make a lamp out of anything

By Laura Knowles on August 30, 2017

The Antiques and Collectibles Show at Lititz Springs Park proved to be quite enlightening on Saturday.

Not only was the park lit up with a menagerie of makeshift lamps, but there were lessons to be learned on history, family heritage, time-honored customs, and offbeat trendsetting fashions of the past.

Don Kirsch of Lititz was out to prove that anything — and he means anything — can be transformed into lamps. From cameras to oil cans, bottle cappers to car jacks, stacks of books to trombones, Kirsch was able to add light to all sorts of things.

“One of the most popular is a pile of books,” said Kirsch, who showed off several stacks of classic novels that had been turned into lamps. The better to read them by, of course.

Several years ago Kirsch made a lamp from an oil can, and he was on a roll. He made a camera into a lamp. He transformed a copper bug sprayer and a VW tin cut-out into lamps. Trombones, flutes, trumpets, saxophones and oboes got a new life after young musicians tired of them. Kids’ metal trucks were turned into lamps as lasting keepsakes for grownups who had not quite grown up.

“I can make anything into a lamp,” said the Lititz antiques dealer who has a shop on North Broad Street, right across from the park. “It’s all about repurposing things that have meaning to people.”

There were lots of other things at the antiques and collectibles show that had meaning. From old-fashioned typewriters with keys that stenciled holes through the “o’s” to keepsake photograph albums that told the story of family vacations and picnics from the early 1900s, the show was filled with memories.

At Carol Berkoff’s stand, there was a daguerreotype photograph of a toddler named Harriett Whitney. Dressed in a striped pinafore and wearing little booties, the little girl is identified as Nana Louise’s mother. But who was she? A cross-stitch tea towel was lovingly embroidered back in 1828 with the initials “I W A.” But who were they?

Jerry Striker had lots of Lititz keepsakes, like a bicentennial banner from 1956 with a big golden pretzel on it and a 1907 Industrial Parade assistant marshal badge. Lee Fry and his son Aaron Fry had Lititz memories that included Lititz High School pennants in a rainbow of colors long before Warwick’s red and black. There was a Lititz Springs National Bank deposit bag, marked with #103, once used by some local business to deposit cash from the day’s receipts.

Yesterday’s fashions were showcased with memorabilia that ranged from Aunt Agnes’s mink wrap made to four little minks connected head to tail to an elegant seven-piece Victorian era silver tea service with a rare fuchsia floral design.

“This would have been used by upper class families when company was coming,” explained Vicki Ferguson of Lititz. “Not for everyday use.”

Everyday items included candlesticks, lanterns, rolling pins, baking dishes and spice tins. Then there was a wooden egg crate that holds six layers of a dozen eggs in a compact crate that might have been used to gather eggs from the hen house without breaking them.

Then there was the unexplained, like a basket full of dismembered baby doll heads and bodies or a huge treasure chest filled with assorted jewels, or a fraternity paddle used for pledging with Greek letters carved into it. It was a gift from Paul Tivnan to N. John Glenn in 1948.

It could just be THE John Glenn, who knows? Or maybe not. Either way, the annual antiques show sponsored by Lititz Springs Park was an illuminating step into the past.

Laura Knowles is a local freelance feature writer and regular contributor to the Record Express. She welcomes reader feedback and story tips at lknowles21@gmail.com.

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