Nursing Home Resident Creates Whimsical Winter Villages Made of Scrap Materials

Kate Hogan
·1 min read
Eddy Templin , 79, made a Winter village at his nursing home shown Dec. 20, 2022 Templin. He’s at Westmoreland, a Care Core home in Chillicothe, Ohio. We’re in southern Ohio an hour south of Columbus. And the sign by the village is Eddy’s Winter Village.
Eddy Templin , 79, made a Winter village at his nursing home shown Dec. 20, 2022 Templin. He’s at Westmoreland, a Care Core home in Chillicothe, Ohio. We’re in southern Ohio an hour south of Columbus. And the sign by the village is Eddy’s Winter Village.

Cassidy Dawn

Ed Templin, a 79-year-old resident at Westmoreland nursing home in Chillicothe, Ohio, spent months gathering cardboard and scrap materials to create a whimsical winter village, now on display in his building's lobby.

"I enjoy it," he tells PEOPLE. "Everybody who sees it likes it, so that makes me feel good."

"I don't consider it work," he adds of the labor-intensive craft. "It's just something to do."

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Templin tells PEOPLE he's been creative since his high school years, and "kept it up ever since."

The Kentucky native used recyclable cardboard at Westmoreland for buildings, picked up sticks from outside to turn into trees and sourced cotton balls for snow. He recalls his 2021 creation six months to make.

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The efforts are not lost on visitors like Trish Mares, whose 102-year-old father, World War II veteran Roy Brown, lives at Westmoreland and who enjoyed seeing "Eddy's village" this season.

"Every time I've visited, it makes me smile," she tells PEOPLE.