Pumpkin Lady Puts a Happy Face on Traditionally Scary Time

Janice M. Ericsonis known as the Pumpkin Lady of La Habra.

And no wonder. She imports thousands upon thousands of pumpkins from Northern California for Halloween and paints happy faces on them.

“Halloween is a happy time,” said Ericson, a graphics technician and mother of four, “so instead of spooks, ghosts and goblins, we try to emphasize happiness. It’s not right to make Halloween scary.”

After 12 years, Cinderella’s Carriage Pumpkins, as she calls her monthlong business, has attracted thousands of sightseers, children and senior citizens to her tent-enclosed lot on Whittier Boulevard.

The pumpkins sit in a sort of country farm with barnyard animals, antique wagons and farm implements “so children who have never been to one will know what that kind of life was all about,” Ericson said.

Besides looking, visitors can enroll in a pumpkin-painting class, “and that gives them a life-long skill,” she said.

Ericson first got the idea from a wood sculptor who whittled a face on one of her pumpkins.

“I couldn’t whittle,” she said, “but I could paint, so I tried a series of cartoon characters and they were an immediate hit. Now I can paint a character on a pumpkin in about 20 minutes.”

Her pumpkins sell for $1 to $35, and she charges $3 for her one-hour painting classes, which includes the paint for those who want to decorate their own pumpkins.

She charges $5 and up to paint a pumpkin and says they will last for months if kept away from sunlight and/or stoves.

Ericson and her husband, Thor, a teacher and pastor of Community Bible Church in La Habra, have four children, “and this business helps pay for that,” she said.

Recently, to embellish her pumpkin patch, Ericson bought a fiberglass bucking bronco that once was a landmark atop a local Western wear store.

“We put a saddle on it and let the children ride it in the tent,” she said. “It adds to the charm of all the animals here and, besides, everyone in town wanted to keep it in La Habra.”

Judy and Charles Stoopack, the first couple to be married at the new Dana Point Resort, got an unexpected wedding present.

“Since they were the first to be married here,” said resort spokesperson E. Lesly Martin, “we decided to give them a lifetime honeymoon stay every year, which includes a room with an ocean view and breakfast in bed.”

It’s only valid as long as they’re married, of course.

Larry Doerksen, 41, of Garden Grove is your new breed of blood donor. He sits in a lounge chair sipping coffee through a straw and watches television while the Red Cross takes blood from one arm, separates the white cells, plasma and platelets by machine and gives the red cells and blood right back to him in his other arm.

It takes up to 2 1/2 hours, “but it makes me feel good because I’m able to help people,” he said. “A lot of what I have donated has been given to children who have leukemia or have a lot of problems.”

The Red Cross said only 15% of whole blood is transfused to others in its original form.

Doerksen, an emergency room technician, was the first in Orange County in 1982 to give blood in what is called an apheresis process. Now, 1,625 donors are part of the program.

“Actually, they make me very comfortable when I give the blood,” said Doerksen, who can donate three times a week if his O-positive blood type is needed. When he gave whole blood, he could donate one pint only every 50 days.

Doerksen has donated 70 pints of whole blood and has undergone the aspheresis process 29 times.

“The Red Cross asked me not to donate whole blood any more, so I can be available at any time,” he said.

On Wednesday, Connie Martin of Huntington Beach will learn how much her daily walking regimen has helped her. She’s in training for a shopping spree she won in Oscar Mayer’s national contest.

She has seven minutes to load up as much as $1,500 of food at her local Albertson’s supermarket.

“I’ve done some planning,” said the mother of two teen-agers. “I’m ready. I’m going after meat and fish first.”