What were my favorite toys as a child?

 First let me say we did not have many toys as children. We played games outside in the woods or yards. We played board games inside in bad weather or in the evening until bedtime.

Santa brought us one toy at Christmas. I got the same doll for several Christmases. Mother would re-paint her head (no hair) and face, make new clothes for her and sometimes a bassinet and I was as happy as could be. Her eyes opened and closed and she said “Mama” when she was turned over. She is still in the family. One Christmas, Mother took her wedding night negligée and made my doll an outfit. WOW. That was a beautiful doll that year!

I got a doll that ’wet’ another time. It was rubber and the next summer, it melted.

Daddy managed a store in town and at Christmas, he had a window dressing that included a dancing doll. She got broken during that time and after Christmas, the company did not want to keep her and Daddy got it for me. That was my “Mama” doll since she was missing an arm.

We got cap guns (I had an older brother) and cowboy hats, etc. too. I was a tomboy when I was young. We played cowboy and Indian, Jane and Tarzan (in the woods) where we had vines we would swing on. There were small trees (saplings) that we would bend over and ride the tree until it was permanently that way. When I see a bent tree in the woods now, I think the kids of long ago rode that tree when it was young.

BUT, back to your question, “What were my favorite toys as a kid?” Would a board game be considered a toy? We played Monopoly a great deal of the time. The Walker and Jeffers neighbor children were good friends and we were allowed on non-school nights to play at one of the homes until past bed time. It was a good way to spend a while with friends.

Or, we played checkers, or dominoes. Back then, just having a game of Jacks or Ante Over, Red Rover, drop the handkerchief was fun. We learned to make take a long piece of string and make a cross in the length and ‘saw’ the string. One of our parents would take an empty thread spool, pull a rubber band through with a broken crayon to hold one end and put stick in the other end. We would wind up the stick and it would propel the spool across the floor.

I’m uncertain if I have answered your question or not. Life in the 1940s and ‘50s was good. We were about as poor or rich as everyone else and we did not consider ourselves different. We had chores and did small jobs for neighbors earning a little money. My mother and Billy picked a lot of cotton but I was not good at that. I did do enough to know it will tear your hands up. Billy got a job at 12 and I went to work at 14. I worked 12 hours every Saturday until I was 16. Then, I worked 15 hours for $5.00. It was a very different time.

Children today have too much “Stuff”. They don’t know what fun it is to use your imagination. It’s sad. I am so thankful that my grandchildren were involved in extracurricular activities at school. They were involved in worship of Jesus Christ. They are raising their children to know what chores are and how to take responsibility for their actions. It is good that other parents take responsibility for the proper raising of their children. So many now have no idea how to raise a child. Sad.