Several years ago, Kate French was in Ace Hardware when she saw a garden gnome holding a lantern. The gnome spoke to her, she said.
“It was on sale, so I bought it,” she said. “I named the gnome Jerome.”
Her daughter, who lives in Chicago, had a garden gnome named David. David had an unmarried sister, Oona, who Kate’s daughter decided should be married. So she wrapped Oona up and mailed her to Kate in Clinton, where Oona and Jerome were united in matrimony.
Several years ago, the Frenches had to cut down a big tree, so Sam turned the trunk into a home for Jerome and Oona.
“They like to sit on the front porch of their house,” Kate said.
The union was blessed with two boys. Gnomes always have twins, either two girls or two boys, Kate learned from a coffee-table book about gnomes. But Kate knew where the twins actually came from — Dollar General, where she bought them.
It wasn’t long before Oona’s father showed up.
The new gnome appeared in the French’s backyard after Von Schmidt, a contractor, built a deck on the French house. Kate and Sam decided the new gnome had come to inspect the house Jerome has provided for his daughter, as gnome fathers will do.
“We think Von put it there,” Kate said. “We named him Von. We put him where he could inspect the house, but now we move him around the yard.”
Von, Kate and Sam also know each other from Heartland Community Theatre productions, including the upcoming “West of Pecos” which Von directs.
Kate was in Aldi’s when another gnome, holding a shovel, called her name, so she bought him, took him home and put it in the garden, but didn’t tell Sam. They call him the Gardener.
“Sam thought Von had pranked us again,” Kate said.
Garden gnomes are often depicted holding a tool or pushing a wheelbarrow,engaged in gardening, carpentry or wood-cutting. The backyard of the French house is now home to six gnomes. Another little gnome and a squirrel figure showed up, and live in the front yard, Kate said, so the Frenches now have seven gnomes and a squirrel.
Having a surfeit of gnomes is the opposite of the traditional prank. Garden gnomes are often the target of gnome-nappers, who send the owners a ransom note along with snapshots of the gnome tied to a chair or in some other perilous situation.
Garden gnomes are also known to go walk-about, mailing photographs of themselves, posed in front of the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben or other landmark, back home.
Garden gnomes emigrated to England from Germany, where dwarf statues were carved from wood in the Black Forest, known for cuckoo clocks and wood carvings. Made of terra cotta or porcelain, they became popular in England after Sir Charles Isham imported gnome statues in 1840 from Germany to his estate in central England to decorate his rock garden.
Isham was purported to be eccentric, and believed in “little folk.”
Gnomes, whose name means “from the earth,” are cheerful, industrious creatures who live in harmony with nature, protect the property they live on and bring peace and prosperity. They also live in mines, guarding or mining the load like the seven dwarves in Snow White. Gnomes are characters in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings novels, Frank Baum’s OZ books, C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia and Terry Pratchett’s Discworld.
There are seven gnome theme parks in the world, including three in England. The Netherlands and Poland also have gnome parks, Germany has the Zwergen-Park, zwerg being German for short, and there’s a Gnome Park in southwest Minnesota.
Kate said she and Sam are glad the gnome family has come to live in their garden in Clinton, which all started because Oona needed a husband.
