My grandmother worked on the Vandevoorts team designing and creating these holiday display windows. She later moved on to work for Walter Knoll Florist making their holiday display windows too. We have some family photos of her work but I love seeing the footage of the animated creations in action. Thank you for sharing this.
I was born in 1951, raised north of Olive St Road, one block east of Woodson in University City. Mom's parents lived across the street from McKnight School, a block off Delmar., just east of McKnight. Before Christmas Mom, my older sister and I would drive to Grandma's, park and catch the Delmar Streetcar downtown to stroll around to view the Christmas window displays at Famous, Skruggs and The Grand Leader. I loved the train layouts, particularly at Famous. My sister preferred the dolls at GL. As I recall, it was a fierce competition among the stores. Seems like we did this until I was ten or eleven.
When I was a kid in the 1940's, my mom would always take me downtown St. Louis to see the display windows and visit Santa Clause. My favorite was the extensive train layout on the corner window of Famous Barr. In 1941, we were downtown St Louis when my mom heard the news that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor.
