CAMBRIDGE, Ohio — As Bob Ley reflects on the past 15 years of Dickens Victorian Village, he points out sketches, the scenes he created first by hand, his tribute to A Christmas Carol.

Little did Ley and his late wife, Sue, imagine how many would be brought to life and cherished by those in the city of Cambridge and beyond.

“Well, my wife was an English major in college and she was a school teacher and loved England,” Ley said. “We had gone to the Wheeling Festival of Lights and noticed all the cars going in and out of there and we decided that we would try and do something to bring that traffic into the Cambridge area.”

Ley, owned a men's clothing shop in Cambridge for 42 years, and later became the city's safety service director.

So, as a craftsman, building and dressing nearly 200 life-size mannequins came quite natural, but he's also had plenty of support from the community during the years.

“We wanted something that was distinctive, so that each face had a different look to it. And that worked out real well,” said Ley. “We must have had 200 people ready to carry them out on the street and start the display. And we've improved them every year.”

Julie and Tom Davey operate Dickens Victorian Village welcome center and greet thousands of visitors from near far each year.

Both said Ley's legacy in the city of Cambridge will live on for generations to come.

“It will go on forever and ever and when people come in, one of my jobs that I have here is to show them how we make the mannequins. And I showed them the prints and stuff that Bob did and no one can comprehend how he and his wife took a love of Charles Dickens and the outside of a building and came up with an idea for these mannequins,” said Julie Davey.

In recent years, Cambridge added an impressive daily Holiday Lights and Music show at the Guernsey County Courthouse.

Ley said he's proud business is picking up downtown during the holidays and he enjoys seeing families gather for the events.

He said the holidays in Cambridge are a throwback to much simpler times, a much needed distraction from modern day life.

“People come downtown with the whole family, sometimes they bring them back two or three times,” Ley said. “That you didn't see for a long time. It's coming back.”

Cambridge’s Dickens Victorian Village and Guernsey County Courthouse light show operates through New Year’s Day.

More information may be found on the display’s website.