Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-12-22
OUR squares from the White
House is the Toy Shop.
No one who has ever been in
Washington asks, What toy


II Washington asks, What toy
shop?" for everyone knows the
only historic toy shop is that with the
sign A. Stuntz.
If you happen to be an occupant of the
White House, as Presidents who have
been fathers of children. would have told
you, it is only necessary to walk out the
front gate nearest the Treasury building
to 18th street and there at the historic
juncture of Pennsylvania avenue and
New York avenue, where countless in
augural professions, great parades and
the Grand Army of the Republic at the
close of the civil war have wheeled into
line for the moment of review, right
there. straight ahead three squares and
in full view, is the Toy Shop.
Not every one. however, dwells at the
White House. and to the great majority
wherever they live the Toy Shop seems to
be within walking distance. 1t is in the
heart of the residential part of the city,
and for practically the memory of man
has throbbed away under the surface
life of Washington, symbol of the deeper
joys of mankind and part of the heart
life of all that has made the city famous
1t is such little shop that Joseph and
his wife Appelonia StuntZ founded so
many years ago to be the delight I of
Presidents children and of the loved
ones of other men. A little two-story
house, just two windows wide above and
only a door and show window wide be-
low, but small as it lis with its swinging
alley door to the rear, it was always piled
high in the little tbnnel-lfke room that
ran back to the living room and kitchen
beyond, with every conceivable joy that a
child could wish. Inside it was fragrant
and Christmassy. and outside it kept IT'S
eyes wide open upon the windows of the
=, east room of the White House. whose
oGGurapts were destiIed to carry off so
many \k<>its treasures. Half century
ago. j&t as it looks To-day. its showcase
spreadNSf6re the wondering eyes of the
children Me wonderful carved toys Joseph
made. Talay in az marvelously changed
Washington it smiles its welcome with
quaint cid lworld sincerity.
Thees-on the north side of New York
favenue it has stood for the last tifty-two
.kyears, for Joseph Stuntz, color bearer
OF Napoleon, catered Washington in 1853,
the same ye( The Japanese nation, as a
result oS-fne expedition of Commodore
Perry. entered into its place among the
great nations of the world. In Washing
ton the opening of the Toy Shop is re-
garafR as the greater event.
So lad lincoln Thought and Jesse Grant
anu sPresident Garfield's boys and Scott
Hayes. and so have thought countless
hundreds of children now grown to man
hood and womanhood. whose Children
think the same thing today.
Ttwas a woman known throughout the
land for her social distinction who went
weariix into the shop the other day with
81 want TO feel" she said "as l did
when Twas child. Haven't you any
tany?"
Mention Stuntz at any club or dinner
or social gathering in Washington and
the fioodgates Of reminiscence are
the civil war and reconstruction. In days
of national plenty or panic. the little
shop kept open al day and through the
evenings to satisfy the wants of children
and brighten the lives of fathers and
mothers A warm little love spot, the
only open house of Santa Claus for years
in a CITY of cold marble politics and abb
stract office buildings.
In Napoleon's Service.
When Joseph Stuntz came to Wash
ington in 81 to be the purveyor of toys
to Presidents he had already served
a ruler and had had an adventurous
career. Born in the Tyro in 1897. as
a boy of twelve he had journeyed to
Paris under the spell of Napoleon's fame.
and became apprenticed to cabinet
maker for the Tuilleries. He had already
learned to carve the great of the en-
pire with dexterity when the emperor
needed his right arm in Il desperate cause
The disastrous Russian campaign called
for the rapid mobilization of a new army,
and Joseph became a color-bearer.
But Waterloo came in 1914 and the boy
had an ugly wound in his foot. he had
bled for his emperor and his emperor
was taken away. The wander-lust seized
Joseph. He shipped for the new world
and set up cabinet shop in Philadelphia,
but the young wife the boy found there
died when his baby died, and alone he
took the road again. Mexico allured him
and for some years New Orleans knew
the skill of the fingers trained in the
empe-ors service. But Joseph liked to
get at the heart OF things. He spoke
German, French. Spanish and his adopted
English and he wanted to work for no
less an employer than the government.
He had sensed greatness. He came TO
Annapolis. Nd. found wife in Appelonia
Koch of Baltimore, and began a great
order for furniture to be used for a ship
fitting out at the navy yard of the old
state capital. Time passed, and Joseph's
wound reopened.
1t was during the dire days when the
man saw his life work taken from him
that the last journey. that to Washing
ton. was made. and the soldier and the
skilled artisan. with no little baby of his
own became a fashioner of toys for otner
little children. With the wounded foot
propped on a chair in the little room back
of the shop Joseph sat for years working
miracles in wood for the children And
then the wife came to the front. Such
tafry such kuchen. had never been tasted
in Washington. Why, the bakers daugh-
ever they had a penny to buy the luscious
cookies. And how good 1t all did smell
Every boy and girl, grown to gray hail
now. in Washington will tell you there
never was such fragrance as that oil
Appelonia's shop.
II was in the grimmest years OF the
civil war that Lincoln, wrapped in his