I am fifty-nine years old and I can still enjoy all that there is about toys. When we were going through the Narnia exhibit, they finish it all off with a little shop with things to buy that help you to remember your visit. I have antique toys but this train was a British replica of the train used to transport the children from London to the country during WW 2. If you don't know the story, kids were sent off to sponsoring families not always relatives, for them to get away from the bombing in the city. The Narnia story is based on the experiences that the children have when they live with a professor in an old mansion. They travel into the land of Narnia through the professors large wardrobe.
I will mention John and Iva all the rest of my life. They were step Great Uncle and Aunt who were actually like grandparents to me. The lost a boy in the war and he is buried in France. They were like an experience of visiting the real Living History Farm. When you visited their house it was really going back into time. They had a large metal bucket next to their refrigerator full of cast iron metal toys that all kids played with when they visited. When they moved from the farm I got to take about a third of the contents home with me. This train was in the bucket. It has a 1904 patent date on it but I don't know much about it except that it use to have a windup mechanism in it. I painted it as a college kid, and the Antique Road Show would be scolding me and calling me an idiot, but it was a rusty mess.
This next piece looks like one that would connect to a fire wagon. I have never looked for it at antique store but it probably is out there. I painted it too so it's value is only one of great memories to me.
I have many more and I will show more as time goes by but I thought this trolley sort of related to the theme. It actually looks like a trolley and it has a place to connect something to it like another car, but now I think it could of been a horse drawn trolley. Again I haven't spent time looking for it but I know there are others out there somewhere like it.
I keep a lot of my toys in the oat sprouter that came from John and Iva's home. I look back at the things these people have given me and I really don't think they even could have know how much they meant to me. They lived in a farm home that they had built, close to Hopeville, Iowa and they are buried in the Murray Cemetery, the same as my parents. Thanks for reading.....
Oat Sprouter, what is it? Check this out.....
5 comments:
These are some wonderful toys you have shared. My parents owned some of those trains but I have no idea what happen to them. Maybe they are on ebay somewhere?!
Happy Gardening - love the photo of your garden on the right hand side.
Wonderful memories, and those old toys look like they would have kept any child occupied for hours on end.
I have a love for old trains, and have spent many an hour "train-spotting" on the platforms of my hometown railway stations.
I'm not sure if the children nowadays would get excited over it ;)
What interesting people John and Iva must have been. I like reading this story and the story about the Narnia exhibit.
I once toured the traveling Princess Di exhibit and it was awesome.....and sad. I felt very fortunate to have seen it though.
Hi Larry, Far Guy is coveting your trains, he is the same age as you! He has his childhood Lionel..upstairs .. a work in progress:)
Far Guy, I have two old trains in a box that I brought home from my parents. A guy up town has a track set up in his hardware and said he would work on them. I thought my mom had thrown them away. I was really glad to find them buried under all my mom's sewing stuff. The one needs a lot of the work and the other just hasn't been run since 1965 or earlier.
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