Photos by Holly Allen – The new birthday window at 426 Broadway. A centenarian was celebrated this week with the Sept. 7 birthday of Elaine Worner!
After four decades in existence, the birthday window at Valley Falls has taken on a personality all its own, becoming a tradition and an institution which could only exist in a small town.
“At its simplest, the window makes for a fun backdrop for an annual celebratory photo. At its most complex, it reminds us of everything we stand to gain in living in small town, America,” said Holly Allen, editor of The Vindicator, which has taken custody of the window, now in its third location at 426 Broadway. “It’s something unique to our town, and it’s worth preserving after all these years.”
The tradition began as a joke among friends in 1984 when resident Dorothy Billings put the name of her former classmate and the city’s first councilwoman, Patty Brown, on the Billings DX Service Station window at 512 Broadway to wish her a happy birthday. The quirky card stuck and the idea snowballed. Everyone wanted in on it. Since that day, the daily list of birthday names has grown.
Dorothy continued the tradition for over a decade. Dianne Heinen volunteered to take over the task in 1996, carrying on at Billings station until the window cracked. Rex Foley offered up his gas station window and Heinen moved the venture to the opposite side and opposite end of the street.
Her favorite story involves some of the old-timers who would post up for morning coffee in a booth inside Foley’s station. There they would read the names, backward to them, aloud.
“One day, Roy Allen said to me, ‘You know, my birthday is the 31st of October. And when I was born, my mom didn’t know whether I was a trick or a treat!’ I love that,” Dianne laughed. “After that, I always sent him a card on his birthday.”
When Jo Tichenor moved Aahh Some Blossom in, Dianne continued on. She put up with Jo adding Dianne’s own name with a flourish when she wouldn’t include it herself. Jo filled in from time to time when Dianne had to be away. Eventually, after around 25 years, when it got too cumbersome for Dianne to complete the task wielding both her cane and the bucket of water, Jo took over ministration of the town’s big birthday card. She kept track of the birthdays until her move to 407 Broadway just last month.
As Aahh Some Blossom moved out, 306 Broadway got new windows, and Sprang Heating and Air Conditioning moved into the storefront, a new steward for the old birthday tradition was sought.
Beginning the last week of August, The Vindicator staff started work digitizing Jo’s list for convenience — though the original paper one, with its litany of crossed out names, a kind of reverse remembrance of those who came before, remains an artifact worthy of the historical society.
A fun addition to the window — its very own Valley Falls Birthday Window Facebook page — has been added for folks to tag their yearly photos in. The page’s message button can be used to inform The Vindicator as to names which may need to be added to the window due to a move or a new birth, removed due to death, or amended due to marriage.
“We’re not sure what the rules have been, but the rules now are simple. If this is or was your town, you belong on the window,” Holly said. “Everyone deserves to be famous in a small town, even if for just one day a year.”
In honor of the window’s new location and look — with design work by Megan Turner of Turner Designs, who also created the last header — The Vindicator is reprinting the original article from December 1989, five years after the tradition began, to honor Jo, Dianne, and the late Dorothy Billings for giving us all a little something special on our big day.
The original written birthday slips. Each date of the year has its own page, written in Dorothy or Dianne’s hand.
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Another year older . . .
by Clarke Davis, Dec. 28, 1989
When a sleeping village wakes there are a number of chores to be done: fires stoked, cars started, business doors opened, and birthday proclamations to make.
That last chore belongs to Dorothy Billings, Valley Falls, who every morning for the past five years has posted the names of those with birthdays on the windows of the DX service station.
“Some people think it’s silly,” Dorothy said. “But I have a good time doing it.”
At daybreak, armed with a bucket of warm water and a bottle of white shoe polish, Dorothy heads for the station. Recently, with morning temperatures ranging from 10 to 25 degrees below zero, the water hasn’t worked well.
“It’s easier to scrape the window clean with a razor blade when it’s this cold,” she said.
Patty Brown was the first person to receive the honor a few years back. Dorothy, Patty, and Dorothy’s husband, Jim, were classmates who graduated in 1953.
Dorothy put Patty’s name on the window to wish her a happy birthday and from that time on the station windows have announced the birthdays for each day.
Dorothy’s list is comprised of several small sheets of paper fastened with a paper clip for each month. On Jan. 1 she will write: Delores Gordon, Brenda Vineyard, Veryl Reichart, and Carolyn Snodgrass. Those with birthdays of Christmas were Carol Corrick, Pete Hosler, Lori Stevens, and Baby Jesus.
She will also note Kansas Day, George Washington, and Willard Scott, weatherman on NBC’s Today.
Her slips of paper carry as few as one name and as many as 12 names for each day of the year. There are a few rare days with no names and two or three names that only appear every fourth year, Feb. 29.
She gets the names from church bulletins and people who call her. She watches the social items in the newspaper and clips the birth announcements. Nearly all the names are those of local people, but she has several friends from other communities and people who used to live here that appear on the window each year.
“I have had only one request not to post a person’s name,” she said. “Others have told me not to, but they didn’t mean it. Their spouse would call and tell me to put it up anyway.”
“Norman (the local mortician) called once to say, ‘I think you ought to take that name off,’” she said. “I didn’t know the person was deceased.”
Dorothy said she makes some boo-boos from time to time, mostly with misspellings, but she says she does it because it has been a lot of fun and people tell her they enjoy it.
There are some strict rules — names only, birthdays only, and people only.
“One fellow asked me to post his wife’s age on the window or add a comment like ‘over the hill,’” Dorothy said. This she will not do.
A few exceptions was noting the 90th birthday for one woman and adding a “sweet 16” for another. However, she draws the line on anniversaries, pets, and everything else that has come along.
“There just isn’t enough room on the window,” she said. “One window will hold six names and the other one holds six.”
Dorothy writes big and wants the names visible from the street. Her husband prints the names occasionally, but “He writes them too small,” Dorothy said.
Jim does it when Dorothy has had to work all night. She is a registered nurse employed at Jefferson County Memorial Hospital.
The Billings couple went into the fuel business with his parents in 1959. Jim is a graduate of Pittsburg State University and Dorothy graduated from St. Francis School of Nursing, Topeka. They have five daughters and two grandchildren.
Chris and Baretta Schmeissner, a son-in-law and daughter, joined her parents in the business about three years ago.
Christmas at the Billings’ house included all the children and their families, a sister of Dorothy’s and her family from Topeka, and both their mothers, Mabel Billings and Lennie Cummings.
The birthdays will be posted through the holidays, just as they are every day of the year. Prior to Christmas, when low temperatures set new records near 30 below zero, the sponge on the shoe polish applicator kept freezing up, but got the job done.
“We’ve created a monster,” Dorothy said. “We have to do it.”
Dorothy’s list of names is the town’s honor roll where everyone is known and cared about. The names crossed out are a reminder of who was here.
“Only in a small town,” she said.
Photo from The Vindicator archives – The windows at Billings DX Service Station proclaimed the day’s birthdays for the Valley Falls community. Jim and Dorothy Billings started the unique feature in 1984 and never missed a day.