Arlyne and Dayton Silk, 605 Gleason Avenue, Thief River Falls, will probably sell their Christmas display. Dayton began his setting up his Christmas display sometime in the 1970s, and it all began with this church, a scale model of the Black River Church near St. Hilaire.
Constant care and attention are required of Dayton Silk’s Christmas display - too much now that he’s 88 years old. Silk began his Christmas display in the 1970s with a scale model of the Black River Church near St. Hilaire. This next year, he anticipates selling the display, which has grown every years since he began.
Dayton Silk has no idea now why back sometime before 1972 he started making Christmas decorations for his yard. He does know that it gives him great satisfaction watching the beaming faces of children and parents as they appreciate his moving display.
The years have caught up with Dayton and now his children worry that he’ll get injured trying to put up the decorations. So the years of children, and their children’s children coming to see his display on Gleason Street in Thief River Falls, may be at an end.
It first began with a church. “I haven’t the faintest idea why I started. I guess I just wanted to make a church,” said Dayton.
As he recalls now, that church was the Black River Church. At the time, his father-in-law stepped it out and they came up with a sort of “scale model” of the church. The store came next, then the barn and then of course, said Dayton, he had to add moving cows. A sleigh, a moving train, a nativity scene with 400 lights, and much more were added. The moving train is his favorite, even though it’s hard to keep it running.
Creating the displays took quite a bit of ingenuity. Almost all of the displays are made from scrap. The cows are able to move, for example, because of a bicycle chain, a washing machine motor, some sprockets, and a garage door opener. But through this labor of love, he pieced together a work of art that has been appreciated by generations of appreciative fans. One year, readers of the Thief River Falls Times voted his display as the best Christmas display in town.
Dayton said just last week he was at the hardware store picking up some parts for the display when a man in the store stopped him and told him he’s been going to see the display every year for 20 years.
Dayton often hears that visiting his display is a Christmas tradition shared by many people.
“Every year we start our Christmas tour of lights there. I just love it. My kids love it, too,” said June Beito of Newfolden. Beito said she’s been going to the display since she was a teenager, and when she heard it might not be displayed next year, proclaimed, “it just wouldn’t be Christmas without it.”
Busloads of school children have gone past the display, and even stopped to see how it worked.
It’s amazing to Dayton, every time they stop.
Time changes many things, and not always for the best.
Last year was the first year since he began that he didn’t add a new element to the display.
Dayton admits putting up the displays, which runs from the day after Thanksgiving to Jan. 5th or 6th, is getting tougher.
He doesn’t admit he has any particular health problem preventing him from putting up the display - only the part that goes with being 88 years old.
Dayton has lived at the same spot at 605 Gleason Avenue since May of 1943. Before he retired, Dayton was a house-to-house milk deliveryman. He did that for 28 years before retiring in 1975, so he said, he knows a “few” people. It’s the people who have enjoyed the display the most that he hates to think will not see his Christmas display. So he teeters on letting his family have its way, and his desire to keep up with the tradition he started so many years ago. “You feel good every day you can get out there and do it,” said Dayton.
Dayton Silk’s Christmas display has never been vandalized. One year, he said some lights went missing, but that’s all. He’s been very fortunate - fortunate in many ways, and not just because no one has vandalized his display. He’s fortunate, he says, because he has so many friends; and, he’s fortunate because he’s been able to put smiles on so many faces.
Dayton said if he has to sell it and move into another home or apartment, he would like to sell the display as a whole.
Arlyne, his wife, said she’d like to see it in front of a church.
Wherever it ends up, Dayton Silk’s Christmas display will remind us of a different era - a time when Christmas gifts were made, not bought; and a time when people were not worried of offending anyone by saying Merry Christmas.
We are fortunate indeed.
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