The eye-catching Easter-egg tree in Mary Ella Campbell’s yard in Dover was inspired by a book she read to first-graders in the 1970s.
Campbell, who taught elementary school for 30 years, read The Egg Tree, by Katherine Milhous, to a class of first-graders at Sequoyah Elementary School in Russellville.
“It’s an old book,” she said. It was published in 1950, and it won the Caldecott Medal in 1951.
“When I found it, I just fell in love with it, and I read it to my first-graders. This is how you make an egg tree if you want to, and this is how you do it. Of course, the kids wanted to. My kids did eggs, baskets and rabbits that they made.”
She taught one year in Pottsville and 29 years in the Russellville School District, and she retired in 1985.
Campbell, 84, said she became known as The Egg Tree Lady when she started the egg-tree decorating tradition at home after she retired. First, she used a bush in her yard.
When she and her husband moved to their current home at 9566 Market St., she started picking a tree, much like people do at Christmastime.
Her husband, Robert, who is a retired homebuilder and a painter, has helped her through the years.
“We go to the woods and cut one down every year and plant it in the ground so we get the size we want,” she said. “He just drives around, and he knows who owns everything.” She said her husband asks the landowners for permission to cut a tree, and they are agreeable, she said.
“We cut some of the limbs and bury it about 2 feet in the ground,” she said.
The process of decorating has gotten easier through the years. Plastic eggs didn’t always come with small holes in the ends, she said.
“In the beginning, we had to punch holes in the eggs, and then I used Christmas hooks,” she said. Campbell said she wrapped the hook around the tree limbs to keep the eggs from blowing off in the wind.
“We’ve played around with it,” she said. At one point, they put screws in one end of the eggs and put ornament hooks on the screws and hung them. However, that was time-consuming and tedious.
“That’s back when we were young — or younger,” she said.
Campbell said she and her husband were married in their early 40s, and they don’t have children.
Now plastic eggs come with two holes, so she puts a Christmas-ornament hook through one of the holes and twists it. She uses a second hook to wrap around the first hook; then she twists it around the branches.
She’s not sure how many eggs she has — hundreds — and she adds about 20 each year to replace ones that come off or get damaged.
“Then once in a while, I put some wind chimes, birds.
After the holiday, she buys plastic, weather-resistant decorations from a store in Dover.
“Every year, I might find something a little different,” she said.
Each Christmas, she buys extra ornament hooks. One day she went to the Dollar Store in Dover and asked the saleswoman, “You wouldn’t happen to know where you could put your hands on some hooks, do you?” The woman later brought Campbell hooks, but when Campbell tried to pay her, the woman said, “No, I brought these from home.”
People often come up to Campbell and tell her how much they enjoy her tree each year.
“They’ll say, ‘My children are grown, and you’ve been putting it up since they were little, and they still like your tree,’” Campbell said.
“The thing that tickled me the most, I was out in the yard doing something, and these motorcycles … went tearing by and then came tearing back into my driveway. I thought, ‘Oh, my.’ This man said, ‘My 7 year-old daughter would kill me if I didn’t stop and take a picture — can I take a picture?’” Campbell agreed, of course. “Here’s this big old burly scary-looking man, and he’s scared of his little girl,” she said, laughing.
People often use the tree as a backdrop for their children’s Easter photos, too.
“I say, ‘Dress them up in their outfits and do it; you don’t have to ask me,’” she said.
Dover Elementary School Principal Josh Sims, the incoming superintendent, said he remembers seeing the tree more than 15 years ago when he started to Arkansas Tech University.
“I’ve always noticed the tree, but I don’t know her,” he said. “It’s really cool; I think a lot of people in the community probably enjoy seeing it.”
Campbell said she starts the decorating process in March.
“I want it up at least a month; it’s too much trouble,” she said.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.