Akron Life November 2023

photos by Talia Hodge

When Barb Resch was growing up in Canton, her late mother, Freeda Hennis, used to take her on tours. “We’d have cameras around our neck and … she would teach us everything about our community,” Resch says. “That was ingrained in me, that love of community.” Find some of those photos — featuring places like the Canton Palace Theatre and Meyers Lake — on wooden blocks and canvases and in charm jewelry at Cantonology, a store with Canton-centered prod ucts that Resch opened in November 2015 with her daughter, Mandy Morckel. The mother-daughter pair makes many of the store’s products. Resch crafts jewelry featuring vintage bus tokens ($15) from the Canton City Lines buses. Morckel etches glassware ($10-$30) such as mugs, wine glasses and football-shaped cups with phrases like “Canton Est. 1805,” “McKinley Bulldogs” and “Fawcett Stadium Forever.” They also make bead stretch bracelets ($3) that say “Canton Girl,” “Ohio Girl” and “I Love Canton” and car decals ($5) with phrases like “Canton Ohio: The Birthplace of Pro Football” and “I Willy Love Canton,” which features the whale from the former Mother Goose Land amusement park. “If you were a child in Canton between 1958 and 1989, you’ve got fond memories of going to Mother Goose Land,” says Resch. “We focus on happy memory kind of things.” Resch also illustrates her love for Canton and her mother with the “Freeda’s Footsteps” collection featuring a journal, books and free download able coloring pages that star a drawing she created of her mother depicted as a kid. The character visits Canton spots like the “Reintegration of Pro Football, 1946” mural and the McKinley Monument. “It is a way for my mom to continue her process of showing kids, in a fun way, the things that are in their community,” Resch says. “We’re all about celebrating things that make you feel good about Canton.” Gift This: Vintage McKinley Lehman print, $15, five-pack $50, holiday open house Nov. 11, 306 Fourth St. NW, Canton, cantonology.com // AS Ho m eto w n Tour

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NOVEMBER 2023 | akronlife.com