The last thing one might expect to see in the living room of a couple in Bowling Green would be a Christmas scene of a small Pennsylvania town set in the late 1950s, yet in December 2003, visitors to the home of Paul and Babs Schnoes found exactly that, complete with an HO-gauge train, circling their Christmas tree.

The intricate set-up, which included a fox hunt, late ’50s model Corvettes and a cheerful Santa, began when Paul’s father whittled a scene with sledders on a snowy hill in the early 1900s. His mother added the train, and a tradition was born.

The Schnoes spent 47 years adding to and changing the layout with the seasons and available room. Some of the pieces were eventually relocated to a different state to live with one of their sons, who carried on the tradition with his own family each year.

– “Way Back When in Warren County” is compiled by researchers at the Warren County Public Library and appears twice weekly in the Bowling Green Daily News. For more information about the library, visit warrenpl.org.