What Were Your Favorite Toys as a Child?

 Since I was born during the depression and spent my early childhood during WW II, we did not have many toys that came from a store. There was little availability of these as the major efforts of manufacturers was survival and for the war effort. We, or parents, made much of what we played with, either by carving or whittling from wood, knitting or sewing a doll and then stuffing it with newspaper. We cut out paper dolls from the pictures in catalogues, we created villages from the light cardboard pieces that separated layers in some packaging. We used our imaginations a lot. We dressed up in old clothing and played "house". I remember I received a gift of a small blackboard and some chalk and with that we played "school". We played lots of hide and seek types of games and with a rope we could skip and with a stick we could draw a grid in the dirt and then throw a piece of glass into a square to play hopscotch. If we were lucky enough to have a bag of marbles, we'd toss them low against a wall in hopes they would hit an opponent's marble andwe'd win it for our collection. Usually someone had a ball and or a bat and we'd create some game using them. I remember wanting a big doll called a Marilyn Doll and how I cherished her when Santa brought her to me. She was about 20 inches tall, had a hard body with articulated limbs, a reddish brown wig, blue eyes that opened and closed, and a blue dress with a pleated skirt. Not only did I love playing with her and with my friends and their dolls, but I learned to sew by creating clothes for her and to knit by making sweaters, hats, scarves, and socks for her. She was very precious to me and I had hoped to pass her on to my own daughter if I had one. But my older sister had three daughters long before my Sarah was born and my mother gave the doll from my bedroom cupboard to her first grandchild.

Probably just as well, as Barbie dolls were the big rage by the time Sarah played with dolls.