Jan Cronkhite's home is a favorite stop for Waitsburg trick-or-treaters who can always count on a performance by her skeleton marionette, Aloysius (pronounced al-u-wish-es). The 81-year-old former Waitsburg librarian has been entertaining with marionettes since she before she was a teen.

She began her role as puppet master when her mother gifted her with a pair of boy and girl marionettes when she was twelve. Cronkhite would perform, joined on stage by her cat, before the 500 members of the commune, where her family lived at the time.

In her early teens, Cronkhite lived in the San Francis...