Creative Christmas story will come to life with marionettes

A sick day in elementary school nearly 90 years ago started a lifetime passion that a Prairie Wind resident will soon share with his community.   

One of Hovey Brom’s childhood neighbors helped him pass the time when he was sick for a while in second grade. She brought the supplies for a marionette, a puppet you control using strings attached from above. Together they built Hovey’s first marionette of many to come, whom he named Jingles.  

“When you make one and have fun with it, then it gets in your blood and you want to make another,” explains the 96-year-old resident. “And, people enjoyed them.”

Christmas became the perfect platform for a marionette show, with a built-in audience of several aunts and uncles who brought his cousins along to a celebration at the Hovey farm. When he was young, his mother helped with the show. When Hovey married, his wife assisted; then, their children got involved. 

Later this month, some current neighbors will serve as assistants for his first show in at least 20 years that they’re putting on for Prairie Wind. It might never have happened; the marionettes had been stored since 2008 and Hovey wasn’t sure what to do with them. He decided to become reacquainted with his old friends and give them some much-needed repairs and TLC.  

His collection includes more than 15 marionettes; a few were made by his children, some were given to him and others he created out of balsa wood and doll heads. An architect by trade and sculptor by hobby, it’s no surprise he even created trees and painted a stage for the upcoming performance, sure to be entertaining. 

Without giving away Hovey’s entire Christmas story, we’ll tell you that Santa Claus arrives and the Black Knight kidnaps him so he can keep all the toys. You can imagine what happens to save the day with all his marionettes involved. Some of the characters include Johnny, Jingles, Shorty, Two Gun, a policeman, a Chinese dragon, a pony and a sailor!