In Memory of Mr. Christmas
Connecticut is full of people who add bright stitches to the state’s fabric. Mervin Whipple, 81, of Killingly, who died April 17, was one.
A third-generation gravedigger who oversaw eight cemeteries, he created the character “Mr. Christmas” and for decades welcomed thousands to his spectacular Christmas display.
Created in memory of his stepson, killed in a work accident, the display eventually included more than 100,000 lights, hundreds of animated figures and the red-jacketed Mr. Whipple, who shook the hand of every visitor (there were more than 50,000 annually). After 35 years, he closed the display Jan. 1, 2003.
A story-telling entrepreneur, Mr. Whipple talked of riding in a rodeo with Roy Rogers but settling down to the family trade in the house where he was born. A curious outcropping of his tombstone business was his becoming a justice of the peace and marrying couples in a chapel he built near his house.
Crowds going to Mr. Whipple’s festive property forced the town to make the streets one-way in the weeks before Christmas. His decorations brought him annual visits from reporters. He would happily retell his tale, explaining that he had to install extra power lines and pay thousands of dollars for electricity.
He dismissed the cost in a 2000 interview. “What the hell good is money?” he asked. “I’ve been in funeral work all my life. I’ve buried millionaires and I’ve buried paupers, and not one of them takes a cent with them.”
