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One of Peggy Burnett's dioramas, entitled "The Borrowers" after the children's fantasy novel, on display at the Orem Heritage Museum on Monday, Jan. 28, 2013. Burnett has been making dioramas since the 1970s.

Spenser Heaps

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One of Peggy Burnett's dioramas on display at the Orem Heritage Museum on Monday, Jan. 28, 2013. Burnett has been making dioramas since the 1970s.

Spenser Heaps

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Peggy Burnett poses for a photo with a selection of her dioramas on display at the Orem Heritage Museum on Monday, Jan. 28, 2013. Burnett has been making dioramas since the 1970s.

Spenser Heaps

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There are a handful of ways to preserve history for future generations. A collection made using one of the most unusual ways has been donated to the Orem Heritage Museum.

Thirty-five years ago, Peggy Burnett realized that her children did not know the history of their grandparents and great-grandparents. With a family reunion approaching, she decided to do something about it.

In her childhood, her family owned a small general store in Gaffney, S.C. To help her family picture the store, she recreated it in a detailed diorama. She had never seen anyone make a diorama, and she had no training, but she was undaunted. It took months to hand-craft tiny replicas of the clothes, wash tubs and household goods once sold in the store. She used clay and wood, fabric and cardboard.

“I used the inside of cola bottle caps for dishes,” she said. “The kids loved it.”

She’s been making dioramas since.

“I don’t know why,” she said with a laugh. “I just enjoyed it so much.”

At the urging of her husband, she donated 47 hand-crafted dioramas to the Orem Heritage Museum.

“I thought gosh, more people ought to see them because they are historically significant to this area and back east,” said her husband, Lamar Burnett, who taught art at Orem’s Lincoln High School in 1949 and 1950. “I just felt like we are getting older and what would we do with them? If we left them to our kids, they would send them to the garbage.”

He contacted museum officials and invited them to come to the couple’s home in Orem to see the dioramas. Officials ended up making several visits, then asked the couple to donate the entire collection.

The subjects of Peggy Burnett’s diorama work ranges from places she knew in her childhood to places she has seen while living throughout the country to scenes inspired by children’s stories. For a diorama of a Native American museum, she meticulously researched indigenous pottery. That diorama has become her favorite.

“All the pots in that museum are exactly like the real Indian pots,” she said. “And I made jewelry to go in that museum, and leather clothing.”

She has recreated her grandparents’ smokehouse, a roadside vegetable stand and a handful of Christmas scenes including a two-story toy shop with Mrs. Claus making sweets on the second-floor kitchen. There is a Victorian front porch “with a swing like what we had when I was a kid,” she said. There is an “Alice In Wonderland” diorama, Halloween scenes, the village from the “Three Little Pigs,” the house from “The Borrowers” and a quilt shop. A diorama of an old gas station comes directly from her childhood.

“My grandfather would take me to town” to get gas, she said. “He would buy a pint of ice cream and have it cut in half and get wooden spoons and we were happy, eating ice cream and getting gas.” Lamar crafted a replica car for the gas station.

The dioramas bring back memories for the older people who see them and give youth a tangible connection to a way of life that doesn’t exist anymore.

Now 81 years old, Burnett isn’t done yet — despite a tragedy. Last year, she lost complete vision in one eye and partial vision in another because of complications from surgery. She also has trouble getting up and down the stairs to her basement workshop. Despite all this, she has a half-dozen more dioramas under construction. One of them is the hillside home of Bilbo Baggins from “The Hobbit.” There is a “Wizard of Oz” scene and a museum full of statuary. When she gets them done, she intends to donate them to the museum too, she said.

The Orem Heritage Museum is now open in its new home at 777 S. State St. in Orem. Admission is free. The museum is open on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 3-7 p.m. For information, visit scera.org.