Jane Ryden, 69, who was enchanted enough by a German blown-glass Christmas ornament that she built a 600-piece collection and gained a reputation on the North Shore as “The Christmas Lady,” died of cancer Thursday, Aug. 30, in the Palliative Care Center in Skokie.
Her collection contained aging cotton batting ornaments and more modern items, but its focus was a series of blown-glass figurines, most of them from the German town of Lauscha in Thuringen province, some of them dating to the 1880s.
Mrs. Ryden’s was one of the key collections of German blown-glass ornaments, and for years her lectures on Christmas decorations and traditions were standard seasonal fare for women’s clubs on the North Shore and western suburbs.
“She was one of the first in the Midwest to delve into the history of ornaments. She was interested in the history as she was in the ornaments themselves,” said author Robert Brenner, whose 1985 book “Christmas Past” included contributions from Mrs. Ryden on the symbolism of ornaments.
“A lot of the history behind those ornaments renewed interest in the 1980s in these old glass figurals,” he added. “She definitely was a key person in bringing that revival back.”
Every December Mrs. Ryden’s two-story frame house in Wilmette was transformed into a holiday wonderland, where reindeer figurines pranced past shelves of jolly Santa Clauses. Antique Christmas cards papered the walls and pronouncedYuletide greetings as–in the center of it all–Mrs. Ryden’s Christmas tree bowed under the weight of her fragile collection.
“She regarded this as a kind of folk art,” her husband, Verner, said. “She had all kinds of stuff, everything you can think of. If it’s Christmas, she collected it, and you wouldn’t believe how much Christmas stuff there is.”
As her collection took shape, its variety surprised even Mrs. Ryden.
Born Patricia Jane Keith, she grew up in Indianapolis and displayed an early talent for illustration, winning state art competitions.
She graduated from the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and studied drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Illinois.
She worked after her education as a fashion illustrator in Chicago and married in 1958. In the 1980s she wrote often for the Home and Design section of Pioneer Press newspapers.
Mrs. Ryden had a collector’s mentality, displaying rare cookie molds and antique copper folk art in her home. But with Christmas art, she found a collecting niche, her husband said.
“I became enchanted with the blown-glass figures,” Mrs. Ryden told the Tribune in 1982, citing her art background as the reason. “I appreciated the fact that each decoration was an original, handmade and hand painted.”
As she collected the items, she also collected their stories–from the glass-blowing traditions in Thuringen to the unique Christmas legends and customs each ornament represented. These she passed on in the series of Christmastime lectures and slide shows in the 1970s and ’80s.
In recent years Mrs. Ryden had also begun a book on Christmas collectibles, her husband said.
Mrs. Ryden is also survived by two sons, Eric and Kurt; a sister, Annette Kay Spitler; and a brother, Charles Keith.
Visitation will be held from 4 to 9 p.m. Thursday in Scott Funeral Home, 1100 Greenleaf Ave., Wilmette.
A service will be held at 10 a.m. Friday in the First Presbyterian Church of Wilmette, 600 9th St., Wilmette.
