LAWRENCE JENSEN says that as long as he can use his hands he’ll continue his toy repair for disadvantaged children. “I can come down here, prop my feet up and have a good old time,” he says.

SLEEPY EYE — The toys are neatly stacked on shelves in Lawrence Jensen’s basement.

Dolls and dollhouses, stuffed dogs, games and wind-up toys adorn the limited shelving; wagons and pull toys are on the floor.

There is plenty of space now to walk around between the toys, but it wasn’t that way just 10 days ago. Then, scores of toys were lying in heaps on the basement floor.

The toys had been restored to use by Jensen and before they were picked up by the Brown County Family Service Center for children from underprivileged families.

Jensen figures he restored 200 Christmas toys this year and spent about $100 out of his own pocket to do it.

“I’m starting in for next year now unless somebody didn’t get something for Christmas through the Family Service Center,” he said.

JENSEN and his wife, Gladys, live in a mobile home on Sleepy Eye’s southwest side. The home is neat and comfortable and below it is the basement where Jensen spends most of his spare time.

A man of modest means, he works at Comfrey School on a government work program; and for reasons he can’t really explain, his life has become wrapped around the spirit of giving. Christmas gives him the chance.

“It makes you feel like you’re really doing something to help people out,” he explains.

And it gives him a chance to indulge in his favorite hobby- tinkering at his workbench.

“I can come down here, prop my feet up,and have a good old time,’ he says, laughing.

THE IDEA was born before Christmas last year,he says, after he had an operation for a double hernia.

“I didn’t have anything to do,” Jensen recalls,”only my house plants. I always liked to repair things,so…”

He wasted little time getting a jump on Christmas,1975. He went to the Sleepy Eye Herald-Dispatch office, got some publicity for his project idea, and the toys started coming in right after Christmas.

“The Jaycees gave me $100,” he says, “but you’d be surprised how much it cost…rods, axles, little bolts…a lot more than I realized.”

The total cost for his year’s effort, he estimates, is around $200. The Sleepy Eye Jaycee donation was the only contribution he received.

IN SPITE of the expense, Jensen wants more toys for next year. He would like to receive toys from the New Ulm area and would like to establish a collection point for them in New Ulm.

He also could use more money for repair parts.

“I’ve been fortunate, though,” he says. “The blacksmith shop does my welding for nothing. I wish I had a 110-volt welder but you’ve got to draw a limit to what you take to.”

A Sleepy Eye paint dealer also helps Jensen out by selling enamel paint to him at about cost.

ANY KIND of toy can be taken to Jensen, who lives at 824 Water St. SW.

“I’ll accept anything — even bicycles,” he says.

He repaired several bicycles this year and gave one of them-along with a tricycle, table and chairs, doll and doll buggy, and “I don’t know what all else” to the Van Thanh Nguyen family, Vietnamese refugees now living at Sleepy Eye.

Jensen smiled remembering the scene when the toys were presented to the six Vietnamese youngsters.

“They were happy to get it. They even came back and visited us one Sunday.”

JENSEN’S philanthropic hobby is also aided by a penchant for scrounging.

I put lawnmower wheels on pedal cars,” he noted.”I get ’em wherever I can find ’em. I got one set from my brother at Brainerd and then my lawnmower broke down and I took those.”

It may be that his recollection of his own Christmases as a youngster has a strong bearing on his unwavering allegiance to toy repair.

“When I was a kid I probably would get a little cork gun,” he remembers. Man, if I had toys like this I’d have really felt good.”

YET MUCH of what he gets for repair is plastic junk. He now has five tiny plastic phonographs that were not on the market before the last holiday season. They sold for about $14, he says, and all are now broken.

Gazing around at his collection, the shoddiness of many modern toymakers brought something to the Sleepy Eye toy master’s mind.

“I’m not complaining, but people are wasteful,”‘he said with a reflective tone. “There should be more people salvaging these things rather than throwing them in the dumpgrounds.”

In fact, he would like to earn his income as a toy salvager rather than as a general laborer at a school under a government work project.

“I said, ‘Why not give me the same amount of money and let me stay home and fix toys for the needy,'” he said. “But they wouldn’t do it.”

But to Jensen the money is secondary. Kids and Christmas come first.

New Ulm Daily Journal

Dec. 16, 1975