Damaged tree now stands as an inspiration to others

LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) - Right in front of a David City couple’s home, you’ll find an angel that was carved out a maple tree.

We caught up with Bryon and Mary Forney to talk about this carving that seems to really be drawing a lot of visitors to see it.

“This is an angel we had carved by 3 Timbers Studio,” Bryon said. “This is an old maple that was more than 100 years old. We had severe winds that came through our property and took the limbs off and put them in the roof of our home. My wife collects angels, and she decided that we would get it carved into an angel. She is now 4 feet by 17 and a half feet, and we had her carved into an angel and we named him after two close friends of ours.”

It turns out the name of the angel is Kimberly Debra, and Mary Forney says it has a lot of meaning.

“Kim is my sister-in-law, and she is battling cancer,” Mary said. “And my friend Deb is also battling cancer. Everybody really loves the angel carving.”

Bryon says many people stop by and some even want to touch the carving.

“We let them come in behind the fence and look between her wings,” Bryon said. “They are kind of in awe. I’ve had a lot of people tell us they’ve had a ‘moment’. They will touch her, and for a split second everything just kind of stops. That is inspiring for them, and us. We have opened this up for everyone to see. It’s something we’ve never seen. We want to share her. She is also still in the ground. We left the bark on the ground. In addition to that, she has some damaged spots. She has one spot on her shoulder and one on her wrist. We had left them, as the big tree had twisted internally. She went through a couple of bad storms to get here. Our next step is, we are going to light her up on the back side of her wings, so at night you can see a halo up over the top of her.”

“We had her carved so she is facing our public cemetery,” Bryon said. “My mom and dad, and family members are there. She is actually looking over my folks. We are very thankful to 3 Timbers Studio and Tony Novak Construction out of David City. They made this possible for us. We decided to do this as something you just don’t normally see.”

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