Guest speakers at the annual meeting of a US ancestry organisation have presented a range of antique toys, stirring up memories of childhood for some attendees.
The meeting of the Mercer County Chapter for the Ohio Genealogical Society was held recently at the Richardson-Bretz Building in Celina, Ohio, where Annie and Sue Miller gave a presentation about antique toys.
To start the talk, the sisters discussed their own stories concerning such items, before inviting a general discussion. According to Sue, toys and Christmas are natural partners.
The pair presented some items from the past, mainly the 1930s. The collection included a Roy Rogers cowboy doll and its horse, a train set, homemade toys, and a metal truck that had a working lift. The sisters commented that many of the toys were made using metal and had sharp edges, certainly not permitted today.
Sue continued with a story about how her father had gone to the Turner Toy Co. factory, looking in the scrap bin to find items that had been discarded. These were then taken to the front of the store, where factory workers would repair them. The sisters said that their favourite part of the presentation was the general discussion, when many spoke of their childhood.
Antique toys are often passed down through the generations, with many being stored in an antique chest rather than modern boxes. One of the presentations that featured antiques, which was held at the nearby Celina Manor nursing home, involved asking the younger employees to compete against residents to guess what each item was. Apparently, the residents enjoyed the lively competition.