By Laura Mazur
Community Post
Some people have a passion for collecting a certain item. The Nagels have a passion for collecting collections, however.

Bob and Donna Nagel, of New Bremen, have a love for having certain things in their home and these things have even been in abundance at times.
“It's just whatever hits us. Mom likes this. Dad likes that. We get a lot,” said Donna Nagel. “We've had a lot of birthdays, anniversaries and Christmases.”
Clocks, dolls and music boxes are some of their favorite things that have hit the couple of almost 57 years throughout time.
Bob Nagel is the collector of the clocks in the house.
Many have come as gifts, such as a grandfather clock his wife bought him for Valentine's Day more than 40 years ago.
“I change it every week when I reset the time,” he explained of the four different chimes in the clock.
Many of the clocks in the house sound off at the hour, so Bob has set each a few minutes apart in time so that he can hear the melodic voices of his pieces. From the grandfather clock, to a German coo-coo clock in the kitchen, to a clock that plays a variety of songs such as “My Heart Will Go On,” “Yesterday” and “Love Me Tender,” to another clock that chirps at the hour, they make him smile when he hears them announce the hour.
“I like the noisy ones,” he laughed.
Of these clocks, some are just sentimental to him. One of these is a mantle clock that was given to him as a gift that reminds him of his grandmother, Anna Nagel, who lived in Minster. She had a similar one when she lived along Frankfort Street.
Another clock that keeps on ticking in the house is an electric clock that is part of the wall in their kitchen and is hooked in electrically. They pride themselves that there are only two other such timepieces around like it, and they are also in New Bremen.
“I have my toys, she has hers,” says Bob.
Donna Nagel is the collector of the dolls and music boxes in the house.
She says one love actually led to the other.
“I don't really know how I got started on the music boxes. I got a ceramic doll that was musical and it took off from there,” she explained.
Some of her dolls have been bought in different areas the couple have traveled to on vacation. Many of these dolls either hang around lamp stands or are protected within a glass cabinet, looking out to the world and being looked back upon.
Vacation areas where Donna has bought or family members have bought dolls for her include such places as California, Nevada, New York, Massachusetts, Washington, D.C. and Canada. Of these, going places where they could camp have been their favorites.
“No matter where you go, you always have friends,” said Donna. “There's so much in life people miss.”
The couple has been downsizing over the years, they admit, and Donna no longer has more than 100 music boxes, but she still has a healthy collection from mini-pianos to knick knack ones, after selling some at garage sales and auctions. She also agrees that while many of her collectibles are part of a collection, they are worth much more sentimentally than monetarily.
Other collections the couple has had over the years have included mugs from the Minster Oktoberfest and Bremenfest and salt and pepper shakers.
Besides collecting, the couple also enjoys canning and baking�"in numbers, of course. The couple's basement shelves are full of canned items that have been put away in advance to have the comfort of homecooking but the convenience to open a jar when needed.
Both members of the couple are retired from Goodyear, in St. Marys, and like to sit back and enjoy all the happiness of home.
The couple bake delicious carrot cakes for family, friends, visitors and those they feel will enjoy one. They say that they have cut back on the production of these cakes over the years, though, having before baked 12 to 14 in a day when the supply runs out, but now only bake between eight and 10.
And the visitors they do indeed have at times includes their close family. They have six children, of whom Robert Lee, James, Mike and John, live in in New Bremen, Joyce, in St. Marys and Dan, in Florida. The couple also has 21 grandchildren, 14 great-grandchildren and two more on the way.