Toys in Your Family History

Written by Heather Wylie

I was cleaning out one of my closets and found an extensive collection of older Tonka toys. There were bulldozers and trucks with ladders – massive, metal toys. Initially, I didn’t recognize them, but as I set them next to one another, they began to trigger old memories.

I remembered sitting on the floor in my aunt’s old room at my grandparent’s house, playing with these toys. They were the same set of Tonkas that my male cousins played with when they were little boys. When my cousins outgrew them, they became the property of my sister and me.

When we outgrew them, the great-grandchildren played with them for a time. We had other toys at my grandparent’s house: Lincoln Logs, stuffed dogs, a wooden rocking horse, plastic horses and cowboys (and some of the cowboys could even ride the plastic horses). Each toy seemed to tell a story; they each had their own history.

Some of my favorite toys were the little aluminum cars that my grandfather had brought home from Edinburgh, Scotland, when he was stationed there in the 1950s (they had real rubber tires!). The cars were so intricate that some of their doors, trunks, and hoods opened. I remembered my grandfather telling a story about the shop that he had bought them from, on Prince’s Street, and when I was in Edinburgh myself, nearly 60 years later, he wanted me to see if the toy store was still there (alas, it wasn’t).

These rediscovered childhood toys caused me to think about all of the toys that my sister and I were given when we were children that still live in my mother’s attic. What about the toys of other ancestors? What did play look like for my parents, my grandparents, or my great-grandparents?

My paternal grandmother had a porcelain doll that she took great pride in. It had been hers when she was a little girl (she loved these dolls so much that I took porcelain doll lessons). She would take it out at Christmas and put it underneath her tree. My parents have this treasured keepsake now.

My father has his old Smokey Bear toy, very loved, and over 60 years old now. He also still has his electric train set; as a boy, he used to set it up, and his pet parakeet would ride around the track. My maternal grandfather never told stories about toys in his childhood. His early childhood tracked the Great Depression.

Instead, he told stories about wandering around the Pennsylvania woods or playing with sticks (in one story, he said he found a snake and grabbed a stick to beat it with but quickly realized the stick was another snake!).

Toys so often give us insight into our ancestor’s childhoods: who they were, what they played with, and what was treasured by them. So often, those who came before us can be just names on documents. Learning more about the items they treasured – and how they played when they were children – provides insight into who they were as individuals. Toys show us how our ancestors played and what they loved. What heirloom toys or stories of play have been passed down to you?

Today is a great day to write down what you know!