Published: January 07, 2007 02:57 pm      

Larue Barnes: Putting life together

It all began 28 years ago. Randy and Kay Hamilton have 104 Christmas jigsaw puzzles now — all evidence of family teamwork. What each family member learned from their family night work sessions, however, goes far beyond a hands-on project.

“When I was a young child, my mother introduced me to jigsaw puzzles,” Randy said. “I always liked them because it felt good to put the picture together. It made me feel that I had accomplished something. I never began one that I didn’t finish.”

When the late Randy and Louise Hamilton moved here from Fort Worth in 1963, their children Billie [Kelley], Randy Jr. and Gary adjusted well to Cleburne. Each has chosen to make Cleburne home.

Randy and Kay Reynolds began dating when she was a junior at Cleburne High School, and he a sophomore in college. They married in 1970.

They lived in Arlington for Randy to graduate from the University of Texas at Arlington, and then moved back to Cleburne.

“I was in the furniture business with my father,” he said. “In 1976, we moved to San Marcos to manage our furniture store there. It was in 1978 that Kay and I began our Christmas jigsaw puzzle tradition.”

Kay said, “We had a 6-year-old son, Randy III, and were expecting another son on Christmas Day. I was told by my doctor that I couldn’t travel during the holidays.”

Randy said, “We didn’t have any maternity insurance and we were saving every penny we could to pay for the expenses coming up. We decided we would try really hard to think of something that we could make for our families that didn’t cost very much. We wanted to give of ourselves, anyway.”

He said he was in a Hallmark shop there in San Marcos and saw something that gave him an idea. “I saw four Christmas puzzles that were half price — and they were so beautiful,” he said. “Maybe we could put them together and frame them — one for each family.”

Kay liked the idea, and the three of them worked together for months on their first family night project. Four puzzles were competed, covered with craft glue, and framed.

“We could only afford basic frames then, but everyone seemed so proud to receive one,” Randy said. “They knew how hard we had worked and that each was a gift from our hearts.”

They moved back to Cleburne in 1982 while Randy was with Haverty’s Furniture in the Metroplex.

From 1995 until 1998 they lived in southern Utah, where he worked in furniture liquidation and later with Great Western Realty. Kay received her degree from Southern Utah University. She was a resource teacher at Cedar City Middle School before they returned to Cleburne.

“I had been a volunteer with special education students earlier, and loved it so much that I decided to teach,” she said. “Now I am eager to be a full-time school administrator.”

She has served as assistant principal at Marti Elementary School in Cleburne and will be assistant principal at Cooke Elementary this fall. Randy teaches special education at Coleman Elementary.

“Teaching is an absolute joy to me,” he said. “I feel that it is what God wanted me to do all along.”

As their family grew, Randy and Kay taught each of their four boys to enjoy building puzzles. Today Randy III is a dentist; Blane is in dental school at Nova Southeastern University; Ross has graduated from Southern Utah University and has been accepted at Baylor College of Dentistry. Their youngest, Brett, a 2006 CHS graduate, is in Argentina on a church mission, but will also pursue dentistry, his parents said. They hope to establish a family dental practice.

The Hamiltons are active members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Cleburne.

“The puzzles aren’t just fun at Christmas,” Randy said. “We love searching for months to find just the right ones for the next year. We found that for a few years the choices were very limited. Evidently there has been a surge in interest in puzzle building, because there are beautiful ones out there now.

“When the boys come home at Thanksgiving we have everything ready. [Invariably], they’ll ask when we are going to start the puzzles. They really seem to look forward to sitting down at tables, enjoying snacks and talking about what they’ve been doing, as we work the puzzles.

“They’ve all been doing them since they were very young, so they are really fast at what they do. We decide who wants to do the sky, who wants to do the snow at the bottom of the picture, etc. — then, as we work, we give the pieces to the person who’s doing those sections. Then, as they are finished, they carry their sections over on poster board to the main table, and it starts taking shape.

“We have no television on. Instead, we talk — we sing. Just good, old-fashioned family time together.”

A few years ago some of their puzzles were on display at Metroplex banks. A television crew visited their home and showed the family happily working together.

But this is the first time their story has been told in Cleburne.

Randy III and Blane are now married. Randy has started puzzle family nights for his young family, the Hamiltons said.

Ross said he looks forward to coming home for the holidays and wants to start on the puzzles right away. Some of his earliest memories involve his family working together.

Randy said that when Ross was a toddler, he climbed up on the table where a puzzle was partially put together. Two separate puzzles were in progress, too, on card tables in the room. The family was completing all three on family nights.

Randy said, “When we got home the baby sitter said that she was so afraid that Ross was going to lose a piece that she scooped all of the pieces up and put them in a bag for us.”

He smiled, “That was a triple challenge — deciding which piece went with which puzzle.”

Taking a tour of their home was much like walking into the pages of a home-decorating portfolio. At least two small decorated Christmas trees were in each room. Framed puzzles graced all the walls — often grouped by themes — some with 1,500 pieces. From whimsical Santa Claus motifs to elegant angelic and Nativity scenes — each appeared absolutely perfect.

“No, there are two that aren’t perfect,” Randy said. “We found one at a garage sale that was identical to Randy’s childhood favorite. We thought it would be neat for him to have his own now that he has a family. You always take a chance on a part not being there when you buy a puzzle that has been opened. Sure enough, one piece was missing.”

He said they always keep the box lid of a puzzle. He retrieved this one from so many years ago, traced the missing piece from the picture on the box, cut it out, and made a replacement.

Then, there was another needed replacement piece on a puzzle that happened to be on a roof line.

“The box lid was used again, but the printed design was off just a fraction,” Randy said. “But I don’t think anyone would notice unless we showed them.”

One puzzle is very special to Kay. It was assembled by one of her fourth-grade students at Cooke when she was a resource teacher in special education.

“He did it at home and surprised me,” she said. “His mother said he was so driven to get it done for me for Christmas.”

The craft glue applied to the puzzles dries clear and keeps all the pieces together. Mat board is carefully chosen to coordinate with the puzzle and each work is professionally framed.

When the Christmas season is over, Randy takes them all down from the wall with care, wraps them in paper and labels them by title. They are carefully packed away in storage until next year.

I expected the labeling to list the poster’s position on the wall in a particular room so that things would go up quickly the next year.

“Oh, no,” he said. “We never do that. We want the freedom to decide how to decorate with them each year.”

I realized I didn’t know why interlocking-piece puzzles are called “jigsaw,” and searched the Internet to find out. It is not a new pastime, I learned. John Spillsbury, a teacher in England, created the first jigsaw puzzle in 1767.

He adhered maps to flat hardwood, used a jigsaw [there’s the clue] to cut along the borders of the European countries, and the first jigsaw puzzle was born. He had carefully hand-painted the pieces.

Gradually the puzzles made by others became things to entertain, not to teach.

In 1880, Milton Bradley made the first jigsaw puzzle for children, “The Smashed Up Locomotive.” By printing a lithograph of a steam engine locomotive and cutting it into pieces, the “smash up” effect was achieved when a child opened the box and saw the locomotive all in pieces.

Because of his Puritan upbringing, Bradley’s nature was to seek order. The object of his creation was to make the locomotive whole once again.

Seeking order — that seems to fit. Makes you wonder if learning family teamwork as a child could transfer into adulthood.

Let’s think about that. Say that you are a child and you, alone, are in charge of the entire sky or all the snow or of baby Jesus in the manger on a puzzle. What a feeling of accomplishment when your part is all put together and you scoop it atop poster board and proudly walk to the main table.

You’ve done your job — you finished what you started. You succeeded once. You can do it again. You did your small part to bring order to a “smashed-up” world.



A source used for this story was www.ideafinder.com.



This interview was suggested

by Jane Burton.



Larue Barnes may be reached at laruebarnes@charter.net.