If sharing a hobby is akin to sharing love, then participants in a National Hobby Day celebration at Frayser-Raleigh Senior Center on Jan. 26 generously displayed their personal natures.

A mutual love of model trains, for example, keeps Carolyn Speidel, 77, of Raleigh, and grandson Dennis Clay of Bartlett, 27 on Feb. 12, especially close. She became fascinated with trains in 1954 while on a trip from New Jersey to Pensacola, Fla., to see her husband-to-be. Later, as her hobby took hold, her now-late husband, William Speidel, went along for the ride, helping her set up and break down her displays. But it was grandson Dennis who inherited the Lionel locomotive gene.

As a young teenager, from Thanksgiving to New Years he would lay out the trains and tracks on our living room and dining room floors. … Elaborate layouts. … Elevations and tunnels.

The excitement, Clay explains, is in the timing: seeing one train, losing sight of it, and then having another appear somewhere else on a track.

While Speidel loved travel by mind and model train, senior center friends Joe and Maurine Tanner of Memphis took to the road. Hes 84, shes 80. Theyve been married 60-plus years and visited every state except Alaska and Hawaii together.

Maurine collected about 150 decorative spoons designating sites they saw, and eagerly displayed them to Hobby Day visitors. She also brought in some of her collectible ceramic buildings, including a replica of Nashvilles Ryman Auditorium of Grand Ole Opry fame.

At the next table, husband Joe Tanner displayed his meticulous needlework, a hobby he took up to keep his hands busy after retiring from 40 years as a paper machine operator at Kimberly-Clark. His elaborate Western scene on a basket is an original crewelwork in acrylic yarn. A 16-by-24-inch framed, needlepoint Nativity scene incorporates human figures from a pattern and everything else, from sky and sheep to dove of peace, from his own creativity.

Nearby sat retired Northwest Airlines ground crew member Bob Vincento, 68, of Memphis, among cardboard boxes of balsa airplane kits like those he has fancied since he was 10. His favorite model planes? Two World War II models: the British Spitfire and the German Messerschmitt Bf-109 — the latter kit within reach for a fresh start. A plane with a 30-inch wingspan, he said, is the biggest Ive ever worked on.

Retired Memphis Veterans Medical Center nurse Joyce Wiggins, 66, of Raleigh leans to the more whimsical. A world traveler herself, she collects American-made Annalee stuffed toys, pins and ornaments depicting fanciful human and animal folk.

I have 225 Annalee dolls, Wiggins said, from a caroler about 4-feet tall to a 3-inch ornament or pins. I have memories that go with many of them. I look at them and it just makes me smile.

Smiles make the day for hobbyist Sandy Stephens, 67, of Frayser too. The retired Kroger cashier has many hobbies, she said, but she presented proof of only a few: her feel for growing plants and crafting garden art. I have a small yard and a lot of shade.

Hobbies, she said, indicate her love of life. It is ironic, then, that she is fighting for hers.

I was diagnosed with Stage 3 ovarian cancer in October 2010, and have two more scans coming up, she says. Oh, Ive been worried, but Im doing much better.

I was having cancer treatments last spring, so I couldnt get out in my garden. My church members came in to help. I didnt want to sit and stare at the walls — though some days I must — so, I kept up the garden myself all summer.

Making pretty things and growing pretty things are important to me. Last year I had 102 potted plants on the deck and in the garden.

This year, she had the stories and photos to share.