Meet a Happy Collector of Handmade Toys. She lives in the 4th Happiest State - Tennessee

This happy woman from Winchester, Tennessee made my day. She has such a love for her collection of simple toys, and she treats her good old fashioned toys with such respect, proudly displaying them, yet unafraid to play with the toys.  She has over 1,000 classic toys from more than 30 different countries. What is especially sweet about her collection is what inspired her to collect the toys in the first place. In the 1970's she was teaching a class to children, and the students told her that their favorite activity was watching TV. She decided to show them the kinds of toys kids used to play with before TV was around.

I love the fact that many of these old toys inspire the imagination. Plus, so many of them involved talented people with wood working and craft skills. Who wouldn't love the adorable pecking hens toy or the incredible Japanese fencing toy? 

We lived in Tennessee for a few years when I was a child (Germantown, a suburb of Memphis). If I had been in her class, I don't think I would have told her that my favorite activity was watching TV, although I did certainly like TV. One of my favorite memories of playing in Tennessee involved the firewood that was stacked up behind our house. My brother and I were so young, that the long stack of firewood seemed large enough to be a big wall, a wall which reminded us of a log cabin. That made it easy for us to act out that we were living on a prairie. The scent of winter chimneys in our 70's suburban neighborhood further helped us imagine we were living a prairie life.  

We also loved our jungle gym, his Star Wars figures, our big wheels, and our roller skates, among other things. As far as simple toys go, we did love rubber balls, the kind you would get in gumball machines. We would sit down on the tile in the foyer and bounce those balls all over the place, as though we were in the middle of our own lifesize pinball machine. 

My favorite simple, classic toy is the paddle ball. I have no paddle ball skills whatseoever, but my grandma has always been fantastic with the paddle ball, and that never fails to impress me. You can still find those today at some souvenir shops, but you may want to pick up several because it won't be long until the elastic strap breaks off, sending the ball flying across the room.

Thank you to TNCrossroadsTV for presenting this lovely story about this woman and her toy collection to YouTube.