In 1982, Faline Jones of Wooster, Ohio was a part-time Secretary. She supplemented her income with some craft work - she made cloth covered doorstops in the shape of a cat, and called them the Cat's Meow. Her "workshop" was her kitchen table.
One day, while visiting a gift shop that sold her Cat's Meow doorstops, some tiny wooden houses in in the shop caught her eye, and she thought, "I can do better than that." Using her sparse resources, she used $39 to buy several pieces of pine and went to work cutting out and painting a dozen two-dimensional miniature wooden houses.
She called her creations The Cat's Meow Village, taking the name from her previous business venture making the cat-shaped fabric doorstops. "I didn't want to throw away those business cards and letterheads," says Jones, 47. Following on her feline theme, Jones stamped a black cat on the front of the 4-by-5-inch wooden architectural facades and peddled her creations to several area gift shops.
"They are more than miniature houses," says Rosann Burger, then owner of the Country Traditions gift shop. "It's the moments and memories people associate with them."
The simple style of the handmade country cottages gave the designs a down-home feel. When a salesman noticed them in January 1983, he began taking orders and, within a year, 800 outlets were selling Jones' houses.
The designs are screen printed and each piece has the piece information, series date, Casper the cat
, and Falines dated signature on them for authentication. Initially they were created as individual creations, but they quickly became popular sellers and were issued in sets and series. This increased their collector's value because now people would buy them to complete their series or set collections. |
| The Cliff House, Ogunquit, ME |
I purchased the above Cat's Meow Village piece while staying at The Cliff House in Ogunquit ME.
However my *favorite pieces are of three businesses that once thrived in Easton, Pennsylvania.
Post Office in 1797, and the home of Colonel Peter Ihre 1828 at 62 Centre Square. The Carmel Corn Shop has been open since 1931. The Carmel Corn Shop is a modest store on the square in Easton. A fire in their building closed them down at the end of '06, but they have since reopened and are as good as new! They, of course, make caramel corn! 
The Mohican Marketplace a turn of the century commercial building formerly located at 23 S. Fourth Street in Easton. "The Last of the Mohican" was The Express-Times headline for the article Oct. 16, 1992, telling of the early-morning fire that swept through and destroyed the three-story 114-year-old landmark at 23-27 S. Fourth St. In the following weeks, the building was demolished. Several pieces of sculpted stone and "capital stone" from the Mohican's facade were rescued by the Northampton County Historical and Genealogical Society, according to the article.
Throughout the years, the Mohican had many owners and uses. Early on, Mohican patrons would arrive at the market in horse and buggy. The Mohican served as a grocery store, selling soy beans, pickles and peanut butter in wooden barrels. Bread sold for a nickel a loaf. Tubs of lard and butter were strategically placed in the market. The inviting smells from the bakery in the back of the building would draw plenty of customers inside.
In 1977, the building served as a marketplace with a variety of shops and a nightclub. The 19th- century building was bought in 1991 and then sold and bought again in June 1992. The once-flourishing marketplace lost its grandeur to bankruptcies, auctions and bad business transactions.
The Easton Sweet Shop that sat on the corner of Centre Square and Northampton 
Street when I was a kid was the spot where we were dropped off and caught the Trans Bridge Bus back to our hometown of Alpha, NJ. Very often we stopped in for french fries and a soda while we waited for the bus.
Street when I was a kid was the spot where we were dropped off and caught the Trans Bridge Bus back to our hometown of Alpha, NJ. Very often we stopped in for french fries and a soda while we waited for the bus.In November of 1997 some of the scenes of the Francis Ford Copolla film "The Florentine," were shot at the Easton Sweet Shop. Actors Chris Penn and Luke Perry were in the movie.
*I purchased the Easton, PA pieces at the:
Palmer Country Store
610-250-0320
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