True life is not only often stranger than fiction, it’s once in awhile, also more beautiful than anything turned out in fiction.
The following is a true story about how a friend in Decatur, Illinois, without even being aware of it, brought back to me the life and times of the late great Daniel T. Zanoza, originator of the now 11-year-old Springfield Nativity Scene—once the only such display to ever stand in any state capitol building in any state across the entire United States.
Through thick and thin Zanoza’s legacy lives on through his wife, Julie, board chair of the Springfield Nativity Scene Committee (SNSC) since 2011.