Alicia Doyle / Special to The Star Lois Barrus seeks a new home for eight boxes of puppets.

After 20 years as a puppeteer, Lois Barrus is seeking a home for eight boxes full of hand-made cast members from "Peter and the Wolf," "Jack and the Beanstalk," "Oliver Twist" and other timeless tales.

"I'm not doing puppetry anymore," said the Moorpark resident, 79. "I made them all myself. I'm trying to find someone who can use them with the same love, and not just for toys. Otherwise, they will just be discarded."

Born in Ohio in 1927, Barrus came to California on a bus at age 16. Before moving West, she was raised by her grandparents, who constantly kept her busy with her favorite pastime: arts and crafts.

"My mother died when I was born and my grandparents raised me," said Barrus, who admits that she was happily spoiled while growing up. "Everybody wanted to help they gave me gifts and toys. I was greatly loved."

'Lived in the boonies'

She tapped into her artistic side after moving to the mountains in Anza, in the Idyllwild area; the nearest town was 45 miles away.

"There wasn't anything to do out there. We lived in the boonies," Barrus said. So she joined the art association in Anza and entered a puppet-making contest for "Oliver Twist." "I wanted to enter that contest; I just kind of got into it."

From that point, she was hooked on creating hand puppets for stories, including "The Artful Dodger" and "The Reluctant Dragon." She compares her puppets to those that appeared on the PBS children's show "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood."

"That's the kind of puppetry classic puppetry," said Barrus, a former registered nurse who has been married to her husband, David, for 57 years. She stopped her puppetry to spend more time with David and play the violin in a community orchestra and the clarinet in a wind ensemble, among other musical group performances.

"I am not going to do anything with the puppets anymore; I don't have the time," she said. "If someone else could use them, that would be great."

Her puppet shows involved recording music and dialogue on cassette tapes played during her performances because, as a solo puppeteer, "there was no way I could go about doing dialogue and the show at the same time."

While the origin of puppetry is unknown, many scholars believe that it is an art form that started in China with the introduction of shadow puppetry, which Barrus has also performed. Shadow puppetry is based on light penetrating through a translucent sheet of cloth, and the shadows are silhouettes seen by the audience in profile or face on.

"I also have a box of marionettes and a portable stage," said Barrus, who is trying to find a suitable home for those items, as well.

Hand puppets figures with heads and a body of cloth that fit over the puppeteer's hand first became popular in the 17th century.

'Punch and Judy' too violent

Puppets like Punch and Judy, two famous characters in an English show, also became popular. Barrus added the characters to her collection, and one performance several years ago in Moorpark was her only show ever cast aside.

"It didn't go over very well because someone said it was too violent," Barrus said of the show, which originated in Italy with the character Punch, who became popular in England in the 1660s. The performance starring Punch shows him fighting his opponents and knocking them out. At the end, he either defeats the devil or is swallowed by a crocodilelike creature, a feat that creates a moral of the story.

"All the parents took their kids out," said Barrus, who performed the entire show before realizing that the audience had left. "That's the only time that has happened; I was flabbergasted that everybody left. The kids usually love 'Punch and Judy.' "

To give Lois Barrus' puppet collection a home, call 532-2061.