Each year as Operation Pumpkin nears, the temperatures shift, the leaves start to change, and elaborate pumpkin carvings begin to pop up in the storefronts on High Street.
Wayne Hamilton, or Pumpkin Wayne as he dubbed himself, started carving pumpkins in the 1990s, around the time his daughter Sarah, was in kindergarten. “He became a stay at home dad because there were three of us older ones that he was taking care of,” Sarah said. “And I think it became his hobby. It was like his thing to do when he had time to do it.”
Wayne started out carving real pumpkins and used traditional carving methods with a mediocre knife. When artificial pumpkins came out around 2000 he began to experiment with those. Over time, artificial pumpkin quality improved and Wayne established a technique and process that worked for him.
Sometimes Wayne would create his own patterns. Other times he would use standard carving stencils that he found in carving books or online. He would glue the pattern onto the pumpkin, then use a hot knife to cut the pumpkin. “He Elmer glued them on, and then you take the hot knife and go around the pattern with the hot knife,” Sarah said. “And then the glue just washes off with water.”
Wayne always strove to grow his collection and carved 10-15 pumpkins each year. There is a huge time investment put into these carvings. Alex Hamilton, Wayne’s son, said the carvings can take anywhere from an hour to multiple days of work. “Since I've been carving myself a bit as well — some easy designs may take, like, an hour, hour and a half,” Alex said. “Some of the difficult designs he did, he took on a week of working in the evening, sometimes, if not longer even just because of how detailed some of the pumpkins are.”
By 2005, Pumpkin Wayne had a collection of around 40 pumpkins from his hobby and had gained enough community recognition that he had a newspaper article written about him. “We would set them up at my grandma's house on Haverhill in Hamilton,” Alex said. “We'd have just a little display there on Halloween. And then we would travel, not to, like, events, but when we went camping, we would take them and set them up for, like, the long weekend that we would do.”
Within the first few years of Operation Pumpkin coming to Hamilton, Wayne became connected and started putting his carvings in the windows of businesses and storefronts on High Street, adding to the festive atmosphere downtown.
Wayne loved his family and some of his children’s favorite memories are intertwined with pumpkin carving. For Alex, one memory that stands out is going camping with his family at their permanent campsite in Liberty, Indiana. They would set out his pumpkin carvings and have blow ups in the background. “We just got to talk to the people about his pumpkins,” Alex said. “And it was really fun, just going out and talking to the people. He was so proud of everything that he
did, and he made me feel so proud of all the pumpkins I did at the time as well, and he bragged about me. And that just really meant a lot.”
Pumpkin Wayne’s carved pumpkin collection holds around 200-220 pumpkins he hand carved himself. There are even more than that, however, as Wayne often gave his pumpkins as gifts for special life events such as weddings, or the birth of a baby. “I have one here at school, actually, that he did when I started teaching, and it says, ‘got brains’ on it and has little brain,” Sarah said.
Sorrowfully, Pumpkin Wayne passed away in 2021, leaving his family to share the joy of his work. While it has been challenging to carry that on without their dad, the family is working to pass down carving knowledge to the next generations. While his children had already learned to carve, now the family is making memories as Wayne’s grandchildren take on pumpkin carving. “I think it's also really cool to see our nieces and nephews start to get into them,” Sarah said. “ I have a toddler, so it's hard seeing us carve the artificial pumpkins with the nieces and nephews and our dad not being there to help them. And we're the ones taking that over. But it's also cool to be passing it to a third generation. And I'm sure my toddler will be carving some real pumpkin with a knife in her hand by three.”
Alex misses having his dad there to go to for questions when carving. “It's challenging in some forms, because it's that pressure of, ‘Hey, am I able to carve as well as he did?’ he said. “I would sit down in the kitchen and I would carve a pumpkin, and he would carve a pumpkin, and he would help me out if I needed the help. So now it's a learning process.”
Wayne’s pumpkin carvings have continued to be stunningly shared each fall on High Street, and the family has also shared a lot of his collection as a yard display each year, even merging collections to display with a close family friend who took up pumpkin carving herself. This year that display will be on Bridgewater Lane in Monroe Crossings. There is also a Facebook page where occasional updates are posted.
A community tradition was born from a dad with a knife and a hobby. As you pass by the vibrant, ornately carved pumpkins downtown this fall, remember the legacy of Pumpkin Wayne and the family working to carry it on.