A miniature life in a dollhouse
Darin Snyder’s miniature family store is among the many displays and items at the Bay Village Women’s Club Foundation Antiques Show being held at Bay High School, March 3-4. Photo by Denny Wendell
Dollhouses might be considered “play” for children, but they originated for adults. Egyptian tombs, dating back thousands of years, contain miniature “homes,” with articles representing their lifestyle. Europeans began building miniature “display cases” several centuries ago to showcase idealized interiors and their collections of expensive miniature objects. Access by children was off-limits.
There has been a resurgence of interest in dollhouses and their furnishings and accessories, with local clubs and shows. At the March 3-4 Antiques Show at Bay High School, you can view vintage dollhouses, miniature rooms and buildings, a Christmas room, a cottage with items you would find in a cottage along Lake Erie, and more.
The miniature display should make you hungry when you visit the Jacobs Confectionary with ice cream and a bakery. My forefathers, the Jacobs brothers, opened the store in 1856 in Danville, Pennsylvania. The whole family worked at the store. This miniature store front is my interpretation of my family store. Note the miniature birthday cakes. It took me over two hours to make!
The Antiques Show runs 10 a.m.-5 p.m. on Saturday, March 3, and 11 a.m.-4 p.m. on Sunday, March 4. This fundraiser for college scholarships is sponsored by The Bay Village Women’s Club Foundation. The annual show has highlighted vintage trains, quilts, dolls and toys in past years.
Darin Snyder
The Bay Village Women's Club and Foundation is Bay's longest running civic and social organization, founded Feb. 1917.