A Rustic Christmas: Lois Turman is Keeping the Tradition Alive

Every December, Lois Turman opens her home to friends and family in the name of tradition, a tradition that began years before Lois and her late husband Ken made the move to Laurel County, Lois’ birthplace and the place she and her husband had visited every weekend for nearly a decade.

Before Lois was born, her grandparents had settled on some farmland in Laurel County. It became the place where her parents lived and raised their own children. Just months after Lois was born, in the middle of World War 2, her family’s home was destroyed when lightning struck their log cabin, starting a fire that burnt their home to the ground and leaving her family with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Lois’ family relocated to Ohio where Lois slept in a suitcase as an infant.

Though Lois’ parents always talked about returning to their ole Kentucky home, the Sturgill family remained in Ohio, coming back down to visit the barn that remained on their property. Lois said her parents had made the barn into a “sweet, little cozy place” for them to come back to visit from time to time after retirement.

“They would enjoy the farm, but they couldn’t leave their grandchildren, they couldn’t leave their children,” Lois said.

Lois and her late husband, Ken, had similar plans to build themselves a home away from home on that same 17 acres of land one day.

“There were times when I remember my dad would bring me over here and Ken and I would walk around and dad would say, ‘now this is the prettiest piece of land in the Colony’ and ‘this would be a perfect spot to build a home’ and I thanked him for all that but never thought we would actually live here,” Lois said.

Shortly after Lois’ father passed away, in 1999, Ken ran across an ad for an 1867 three-story log cabin built by German settlers in Indiana. Though Lois said it needed lots of love and TLC, the pair knew they wanted to take on the project, so the cabin was dismantled and transported by a semi-truck 200 miles from Franklin County, Indiana to Laurel County, Kentucky.

“It was very emotional for it to come through the gate out there,” Lois said. “Tears were running down my mom’s face and ours as well, because our dream was coming true, but my dad just didn’t make it to see it.”

Log by log, the cabin went up. Lois recalls she and Ken putting a wreath up over the logs where the door would one day sit and laying blankets on the floor for a makeshift bed in front of the fireplace where they cooked potatoes for supper.

“It was a labor of love.”

Though they spent every weekend here, it wasn’t until 2010 that Lois and Ken made the move from Ohio to Laurel County. Between their careers, Lois was an accountant and Ken a machinist, and their grandchildren, the couple struggled with the idea of leaving them behind. But after retirement, the two finally made the decision to come back to the place that had been calling them, and especially Lois, home all these years.

The Turmans later added another cabin onto their property that was reportedly built by the first settlers in Laurel County, dating back to around 1867. The historical cabin was discovered in 2004, and Lois and Ken purchased it and had it moved onto their property. The pair also had their own private chapel built on their land after Ken’s declining health made it difficult for them to make it to church services. Other structures were also added to the property overtime, as well.

Their home has since been filled with so many special pieces from Lois and Ken’s childhood, handcrafted cabinetry and other items that the couple had created together, as well as other special touches such as rocks from Rockcastle County to make their fireplace and items that had been purchased and gifted to the couple starting in the 1960s, with Lois recalling the very first antique item she purchased for her home back in Ohio.

“It just called my name,” she said. “The rustier, the better I liked it. It’s like God made me a person that’s supposed to let this thing live on and get a new purpose in life.

“I had no idea that my home would be like this because in Ohio, I had early American furniture. We were out at some fairgrounds, and it was like ‘oh, look at that table.’ It didn’t go with anything we had in our home, but this beat up table caught my eye and I liked it just the way it was—nails showing, paint peeling off. It came into our house and I thought ‘oh my gosh, if that doesn’t look horrible.’ So, in order to make it look good, I had to bring in something else that looked awful.”

Today, stepping into Lois’ cabin is like taking a step back in time, with each room filled with items that help tell the story of the past, from an heirloom stove that was once Lois’ mother’s to antique stoneware pieces to handcrafted toys that Lois and Ken created over the years to showcase toys from the past.

It was those handcrafted toys and décor that started the home tours for Lois and Ken. The pair entered several folk-art shows, traveling all over the country to showcase their work, winning prizes at most every show they were a part of. Buyers soon began asking for specially made orders to give as Christmas gifts and the couple decided they would set up an area of their home in the same primitive style they offered at their shows—never once thinking their entire home would some day be in this same style.

By word of mouth, the home tours grew, as well as orders for specially made gifts. Once Lois and Ken moved to London, she had friends from Ohio calling with their special orders and asking for a tour of their cabin, and eventually her friends in London heard of the tours and joined in, as well.

“It has just kept growing from there,” she said.

Now, Lois spends months each year preparing for guests to arrive, offering a private home tour to friends and family the first Saturday of December every year. She decorates her home and property beautifully from the basement to the third floor and spends much of her time handcrafting unique items to sell.

Though it has been five years since Ken’s passing and two years since their son, Denny, passed away, Lois has carried on the holiday tradition with a little help from her friends. For many, visiting Lois’ home has become a Christmas tradition, with guests inviting new friends and family members to take a step back in time with them to see the beauty and uniqueness of Lois’ home, all while enjoying a fun history lesson, a cookie and a hot cup of wassail.