My first books

One of my first books – saved by my mother over the years – recently turned up in my attic. “Three Little Pigs” is a nursery rhyme classic, and it was fun to rediscover this gem many decades later.

My book contains four nursery rhymes. Besides the pigs’ saga, there is “Puss In Boots, Cinderella,” and “Hansel and Gretel.” Like most books of its type, this one features large type and detailed line drawings: 64 pages of black & white newsprint within a colorful cover.

The book was one of many produced by the Saalfield Publishing Co. of Akron, OH. According to a 2014 article in the Akron Beacon Journal, the company’s fortunes as a publisher of children’s books took a giant leap in 1902 when a Chicago housewife, Francis Montgomery, submitted a first manuscript, “Billy Whiskers: an Autobiography of a Goat.” The book (along with follow-up versions) was a stunning success, and the company went on to become the largest publisher of children’s books in the world.

Reading “Three Little Pigs” and the other stories in today’s era of political correctness reveals how far the genre has come. All the stories contain various forms of violence: the wolf ate two of the three pigs, and the third pig “had the wolf for supper.” “Hansel and Gretel” depicts abandoned children who save themselves from a cannibalistic witch when Gretel shoves the old lady in a blazing oven. Nice.

In the early 1940s, when I began my studies at Black Oak, a country school a half-mile from our Missouri farm, I was treated to the “Dick and Jane” books. The urban family of Dick, Jane, Baby Sally, their pets and straight-arrow parents was depicted with syrupy sentences, usually of fewer than a half-dozen words. Although my classmates probably enjoyed them, I thought the simplistic “Dick and Jane” stories were incredibly boring.

Compared to the mayhem and violence I’d discovered in the “Three Little Pigs,” maybe they were.

As a youngster, one of my favorite comic-strip characters was Donald Duck, a creation of the Walt Disney Co. in the 1930s. Like many of his contemporaries, Donald was a purveyor of innocent fun, his pompous personality inviting the many situations he found himself in. Over the years, Disney added his family of nephews; his forever girlfriend, Daisy; and eventually his rich uncle, “Scrooge McDuck.”

I was one of millions of kids who helped fund the Disney empire, buying many Donald Duck comics at the Zumsteig drug store in Memphis, MO, our county seat. I was also in the crowd of youngsters at the Saturday matinee at the Time Theater, where westerns starring Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and Hopalong Cassidy were eagerly devoured, along with 10-cent popcorn. But we always cheered when the cartoons came on, and appreciated our weekly ration of Donald Duck, Bugs Bunny, and other favorites.

According to Wikipedia, Donald Duck has appeared in more films than any other Disney character, and was included in TV Guide’s list of the 50 greatest cartoon characters of all time in 2002. Outside the “action hero” genre, Donald is the most published comic book character in the world.

In the early ‘40s I was given a wooden pull toy featuring Donald Duck. Made by Fisher-Price, it was 10 inches high, and featured Donald as a parade leader, twirling a green baton. A noisemaker near the rear axle produced a deep “quack” when the wheels turned. It’s likely the mostly-wooden pull-toy was a practical way for the company to stay busy at a time when metals and other wartime materials were scarce.

The pull-toy was one of the few I still have. It still looks like it did in the early 1940s – there’s no fading and the baton is still intact. But the noisemaker no longer “quacks.” Frankly, I don’t think I gave it a lot of hard use, as my favorite toys in those days were metal cars and trucks, and later a Lionel model train set.

“Bugaboo Bill and Other Wonders”

I came across an old book the other day that has me stumped. Was it part of the accumulation of “old stuff” my parents never threw away? Was it a favorite book of a grandparent or other long-gone relative? Or could I have picked it up at an antique store at some point, and forgotten about it?

Whatever its origins, “Bugaboo Bill and Other Wonders” is a treasure, full of fantasy, nonsense rhymes, moral lessons, and short instructive articles aimed at young readers. Although it is doubtful that children in today’s high-tech culture would appreciate it, the book probably delighted and informed many eager young readers in its day.

Published in 1888 by Hubbard Bros. Publishers in Philadelphia, the hardback book’s pages weren’t numbered. My book is in poor condition, with some loose pages and separations along the spine, so it’s impossible to tell exactly how many were there originally. But the book’s subject, “Bugaboo Bill the Giant and Other Wonders,” is represented in the lead article.

“Bugaboo” was an illustrated poem by Palmer Cox, a Canadian illustrator and author, best known for his cartoon books about the “Brownies,” described by Wikipedia as “mischievous but kind-hearted sprites.” Cox was born in 1840 in Granby, Quebec.

The high chair, a device for aiding in the feeding of very young children and infants, has been around for decades. As a separate piece of furniture marketed to parents, most historians agree the high chair dates to the late 19th century.

The chair in my family isn’t quite that old, but it’s close to the century mark. I think its last user was one of my children at the home of their grandparents, who kept the chair along with many other family relics.

My chair’s original owners were Walt and Beulah Miller, who lived a couple of miles from our farm in northeast Missouri. Walt’s father, Joseph, took my dad in when he became an orphan in 1900. Dad grew up in the Miller household, and when he married a “city girl” with limited cooking talents, Beulah helped her acquire many skills, including preparing dinner for hungry threshing crews, a formidable challenge. The two women became close friends, and continued helping each other, especially in the fall, when many farms hosted threshing and silo-filling crews.

When I was born in 1937, Beulah gave my mother the high chair she had used to feed her son, Waltman, when he was an infant. Since Waltman was born in 1923 and an only child, the chair probably dates to that year.