The Collecting Gene Part II

The Collecting Gene Part II

I moved to California just after graduation from high school and two years later when I moved back Mother had switched from teaching ceramics to teaching porcelain doll making.  She had also begun collecting antique and collectible dolls. Then there were the Teddy Bears....so many Teddy Bears that the Museum of Natural History in Denver borrowed her bears at one time for a display they put on for school kids....

Mother's favorite color was blue.  You could say she collected that, too.  When she painted the house, every room got painted varying shades of blue.  The exterior, too.

The photo shows a newspaper article from a local paper in the 1970's.  (And if you knew just how small that house was....It was a small ranch house with a double carport and a basement.)

When I moved back home after my two years in Southern California I would go along with my mom and sister to go antique shopping.  I liked to look at the dolls, but I was living on a $140.00 a month Navy allotment and couldn't afford anything but looking.  (My collector gene had to remain dormant for the time being.)   One day we were at Mother's favorite doll shop and I saw an antique little boy doll dressed in a brown velvet suit.  I said, "Oh!  He's so cute!" and Mother immediately took the doll to the counter.  I said, "Mother, what are you doing?"  and she replied, "If you like that doll, I'm buying it for you.  I've never heard you say you liked any of them before!"  Needless to say, the gene started to rear up....

I began a few years later trading other artists, my dolls for theirs, and built quite a nice little collection.  Then, when I was a single mom, I had to sell most of the collection during a very rough period.  But I couldn't part with the little boy....I did part with him later....I was going to have to sell him and my mom bought him.  The next Christmas, she surprised me and gave him back to me!!!  I was so touched I sat there and cried my eyes out.  And I won't ever part with him again!  As a matter of fact, he now has a little brother.

The Collecting Gene....

My parents were both collectors.  My Dad collected trains, but most of the collections were my mothers. When I was quite young my mother collected Kokeshi dolls, which was an inexpensive way of being able to collect with four children to feed. (Another child came later!)  She also bought some dolls that were little fat hard plastic people with very short molded hair.  She would sew them clothes, make them wigs, repaint their faces and then resell them.  Sears bought them by the gross.  One Christmas she was trying to fill her orders and got so tired that she sewed up her thumb on the sewing machine.

For a brief time in the mid 1950's she ran a small gift shop (with a playpen in the corner....) in Denver called "The Ho Bee Gift Shop" and her logo was a cute little smiling Bee.  I have books that belonged to her that are full of stamps of that bee logo.  Which brings me to another of her collections....books.  She was an avid reader and one living room wall was floor to ceiling bookcases.  In later years there were more bookcases throughout the house.  Wherever there weren't shelves of other collections, that is.

When I was six she had been taking ceramics lessons and began teaching her own lessons at our kitchen table.  She let me pick out a piece of "greenware" and I chose a fat little pig and painted it purplish pink.  I still have it.  By this time she was collecting clowns.

As I moved into late elementary school she was teaching ceramics in our basement and at one point had almost a hundred students.  We had a "pop" machine, or soda machine, if you will, that delivered cold Pepsi products for a quarter.  The "pop" man came and brought cases and took the empties about once a week.  A guy that lived next door to us didn't know about the ceramics classes and he once said to me, "Your parents must be real partiers to go through that much pop!"

I moved to California just after graduation from high school and two years later when I moved back Mother had switched from teaching ceramics to teaching porcelain doll making....

 To Be Continued.....

Button on a String

A button on a string is a very old and simple toy...One that we have our Native American ancestors to thank for! Woodworkers sometimes make a similar toy out of a flat disc of wood with holes drilled for the string. They sometimes drill extra holes so that when you are whirling it around it will sing to you!

Pick out big buttons like coat buttons because they work best! And if you have any buttons with extra holes in them (like the yellow one) they will make different sounds. If you want to play with it in the office, pick a button without the extra holes so it is quiet. Not that I am recommending anyone slouch at work, mind you, but everyone has a moment now and then....

First cut your string and loop it through both holes, then tie the ends together.

Then put an index finger through each loop at each end of the string, as Grandpa is demonstrating in the picture.

Now let the string hang loose and spin the button around in circles (toward you and away from you) until the thread has twisted a bit. Then start slowly pulling the string out to the sides so the button spins. You will feel it getting taught and then loosening and then going taught again.

Now isn't that fun???

Show your kids and your grand kids!

The yellow button in the picture is the one my dad gave me when I was little!
 

Old Toys and Little Boys

It amazes me how such simple things can make little people so happy. They are also little creatures of habit that like doing ritual, routine things. I know there is a lesson here... 

I have two beautiful little grandsons, Kyle is almost three and Aiden is almost 8 months old. They are a such a joy to me (and to their Grandpa, too)! 

We had an old plastic pot on the porch that still had soil in it, but nothing else. We let Kyle plant a green bean seed in it this spring. Every time he came out he wanted to water it and he had fun finding other things; anything that even looked remotely like a seed, to plant. When the green bean plant got about 4 beans on it, you would think he had the greatest gift in the world when we went in to wash the bean so he could eat it! 

Aiden is at the pat a cake stage and he just thinks it is so funny! He has these very penetrating blue eyes and makes very good eye contact and smiles a big grin when you look at him. My daughter took them to the Children's Museum the other day and a woman came up and commented on how he was the most smiley baby she had ever seen. 

Okay, well...I'm a typical Grandma who could go on all day about my grand babies.... But the topic also included old toys..... I still have toys from my childhood. Some dolls, yes, but some simple toys that also make me happy and the grand kids love! I still play with my toys sometimes.... 

Remember these: A Sock Monkey A wooden top A double hole button on a string that you could make whir around A Gyroscope So, have a bit of fun today...get out an old toy and play with it for a while! Remember to be a kid again! Tell me what your favorite childhood toys are!