WHEN THE folks at Cambridge House in Maryville finish up their 6,000-piece jigsaw puzzle, I can proudly claim I put in one piece.
Resident Ruth Toxiolli, 81, did a lot of the rest.
She is one of a group of five or six people who are assembling their part of a larger puzzle. When they are done with their section, which measures 42 inches by 62 inches, it will be put together with three other sections from other supportive living centers around the state and shown at the state Capitol in Springfield.
The approximately 14-foot by 5-foot "largest jigsaw puzzle in the world" is meant to bring attention to affordable supportive living, said Wayne Smallwood, executive director of the state's Affordable Assisted Living Center.
"The concept behind the puzzle is that we're the missing piece of the senior housing puzzle," he said.
The 24,000-piece jigsaw puzzle was divided into four sections of 6,000 pieces each. One came to Cambridge House, and the other three sections went to Quincy, Paris and Bartlett. They are supposed to be finished by Tuesday.
"I have to go and glue them all together and then transport them to the Capitol," Smallwood said. "The puzzle will be on display in the east hallway on the first floor of the rotunda from April 28 to May 2 during Supportive Living Week."
Toxiolli is the main puzzle wizard at Cambridge House. She said she spends two or three hours at a time working on the puzzle several times a day. A daily sign-in sheet keeps track of how long people work on the puzzle.
Toxiolli said she was captivated by jigsaw puzzles after a cable outage last year left residents with a lot of extra time on their hands. She said she has since done several 1,000-piece and 500-piece puzzles.
But this is a much more massive undertaking, with a large table covered with the completed sections of the puzzle and thousands of pieces still unplaced, all looking to me like the same blue. Some pieces are sorted into tins of similar colors and shading.
The puzzle, "Life," by Royce B. McClure, features sections of ocean and sky that look like the same blue from a distance but actually are just subtle shades apart.
You have to look for the little features in the puzzle to figure out where things go, Toxiolli said. That is where the full-size puzzle poster and some other posters of just the Cambridge House section come in handy.
That and incredible patience.
"Sometimes you might get frustrated, but then you go away and come back and find a piece. Then you say, 'There it is. How come I didn't see that?'" she said.
Anyone who stops in is welcome to work on the puzzle.
"One of the women's son-in-law comes to visit, and he always works on it," Toxiolli said. "He is real tall, so he sees things from an angle we don't."
One of their fears is that when the puzzle is finished, there may be pieces missing. Papers with the puzzle give instructions on how to get any missing pieces. But the folks at Cambridge House are trying to be careful.
"We learned the hard way, don't vacuum under this table," Toxiolli said.
Wally Spiers' column runs five days a week. Have a column idea? Call Wally at 239-2506 or 800-642-3878; or e-mail: wspiers@bnd.com
