(Maker)

It wasn’t long before they’d purchased a home on Second Avenue, where the still couple lives.

“The collection of stuff in this house is unreal,” Kukla says.

She picked up a part-time job at Ohio State, but fell back into teaching quite by accident.

“I used to volunteer (in the schools) when my kids were young,” Kukla says. “I’d been in Ireland visiting my family one summer and I’d just come home ... and the phone rang and somebody said, ‘It’s for you.’”

It was a representative from the school district asking Kukla to help out with a new child care program. “After a few years, I told the guy at OSU, ‘I can’t do two jobs, and I like the other one better,’” Kukla says.

Soon, she was teaching morning kindergarten. It was an ideal arrangement for the mother of four, since she could be home by the time her children were back from school. When they were older, she switched to afternoon kindergarten. It was a job she kept for 20 years.

“I love children’s books. I loved doing literacy-linked things, and I loved doing the art end of it,” Kukla says of her time in the classroom. “Grandview parents and Grandview kids are absolutely magnificent. You couldn’t ask for better families and nicer kids.”

Her former students, now grown, approach her at summer concerts and on the street, and she always enjoys seeing them.

Now, her days are filled with sewing and playing with her grandchildren, and several times a week, she makes her way to the library to pick up a few new reads.

In January, Kukla brought the children’s librarians a special treat -- a twoended doll with three faces. One side is Little Red Riding Hood. Flip her upside down, and tucked inside the skirt you’ll find her granny. The wolf’s pointy face is hidden under granny’s cap. “The kids are going to love this,” one librarian says. “Thank you, Nancy.”

“If there’s ever a book you need dolls for, let me know,” Kukla says. “I’ve been making dolls for 40 or 50 years now.”

They ask for a frog with clothes to accompany the book Froggy Gets Dressed by Jonathan London. Coincidentally, Kukla already has a frog with clothing. The stuffed animal was a class pet of sorts. Students would take turns carrying him home and with them on vacations, and writing in a journal about his travels. The frog and his accoutrements, packed in a suitcase, had been sitting in a corner of Kukla’s house, waiting for a new home. She was happy to donate him to the library.

She has several more dolls in process -- some only as far as the idea stage. A Miss Muffet doll (tuffet and all) is waiting for a hairdo, and Kukla is daydreaming of making the Three Little Pigs. They could be used for illustrating both the traditional tale and Jon Scieszka’s retelling from the wolf’s perspective, The True Story of The Three Little Pigs.

“Things like that make stories more than something that’s just printed,” Kukla says. “Some children have a difficult time turning what they read into something … they can relate to. Anything you can do to encourage kids to read is super.”

Already, Kukla has been brainstorming ideas for next year’s library Christmas tree. The 2011 ornaments were snowmen shaped like stars and took her seven months to finish.

“I saw a snowman that holds a candy cane … I might do a cardinal, too,” she says. “I plan to live until I’m 72 – or until I get the ornaments finished.”

Kukla is a member of the Grandview Heights/Marble Cliff Arts Council and the Grandview Civic Association, and she doesn’t mind that both groups meet at the library. She’s there at least once a week, anyway.

Lisa Aurand is editor of Tri-Village Magazine. Feedback welcome at

laurand@pubgroupltd.com.

By Tyler Davis Photography by Lisa Aurand