What was the favorite thing in your toybox?

What is your favorite childhood toy? That question evoked nostalgia, joy, and yearning when we asked people in the college to send us their memories.

Coincidentally, Elee Wood, a recent graduate in comprehensive work, community, and family education, wrote her dissertation on “Objects Matter: The Meaning of Childhood Objects in Learning and Development.” To conduct her research, Wood has asked many adults to stroll down memory lane.

“They tell lots of deeply emotional stories that are very much connected to their personal development,” Wood says. “They tell stories about people who were important to them and the experiences that were connected to those objects. Some of it is nostalgia, but most of it is deep personal reflection where they describe people and experiences who helped shape who they are—their personal sense of being in the world.”

Take a journey with the childhood toys that helped shape the following faculty, staff, students, and alumni, who have so kindly shared their memories (and their age).

As a child, my dad’s old Viewmaster in the Bakelite box provided hours of intrigue. There were 1950s newsreels, geography reels, fairy tales, and classic stories. I still like to look at the images and enter into another world of fantasy and imagination. Something about my dad is part of the Viewmaster, too. It reminds me of all the interesting people he introduced to me and the places we went. Whether in person or through the Viewmaster, those experiences helped me develop into who I am today.

Elizabeth (Elee) Wood, 33
M.Ed., ’01, youth development leadership; Ph.D., ’05, comprehensive work, community, and family education;
program director, MN Youth Work Institute, Center for 4-H Youth Development, University of Minnesota Extension Service

My favorite toy as a child was a “Big Wheel.” Everyone in Columbus, Ohio, had to have one, no matter what. It was my getaway vehicle and took me everywhere I wanted to go; at least wherever the sidewalks would take me. The plastic tires made a loud, annoying noise so that my parents could hear where I was at.

Quentin White, 21
student, business and marketing education major, finance minor

I spent several years of my childhood in rural Wisconsin with a towel around my neck as a cape. I was Batman. The towel was old and yellow, and my mom used one of those big diaper pins to pin it around my neck. I pretty much had it on all day, every day. I refused to take it off, even for family occasions—several years of my parents’ photographs of birthdays and anniversaries feature me with the towel.

I ran around a lot. A rope was tied to the branch of a large willow tree—I ran, grabbed the rope, and swung over whatever was dangerous below (sometimes swarms of ants, other times, crocodiles—I was a kid, so I shifted fluidly from Batman to Tarzan, without bothering to take off the cape).

Timothy Lensmire, 43
associate professor, Department of Curriculum and Instruction

My favorite toy was a stuffed animal named Scottie. He was a black Scottish terrier with a little red tam and a surprised look on his face. He was my best friend, confidante, and playmate. My mother and I lived with her parents during WWII while my dad was in the army. They fenced off a small play-yard in back of the house and outfitted it with a wooden sandbox with a bright green, striped canvas canopy for shade, plus pails, shovels, spoons, and other toys. Scottie “lived” in the play-yard because he had gotten wet and his fur was full of sand. Sadly, over time he deteriorated to the point that he had to be thrown away. I’ve forgiven my mother for tossing him but can still feel a sense of loss when I think about him.

Mary Berg, 61
administrative professional, University of Minnesota
Child Care Center

My favorite childhood toy was (and still is) a very life-like monkey hand puppet. In fact, I utilized it while doing a photo assignment just a few years ago that involved working with infants.

Joseph Kane, 51
M.Ed. student, human resource development

My favorite toy was probably the garden hose. It filled my wading pool, attached to the top of my swingset slide to make a water slide, made the sprinkler spray water in the air for me to run through, gave me a weapon against my younger brother when I was being chased, and, when I got older, it filled countless water balloons for neighborhood-wide, all-day water balloon fights.

Melinda Harris, 33
M.Ed. student, youth development leadership and middle school math endorsement

My favorite toy was my Fisher Price camper, that came complete with pickup-truck, fishing boat, motorcycle, and porta-potty. It is still in my parents’ house; my niece and nephew play with it. I loved it because I love camping, and I liked all the little removable pieces. My husband, dog, and I now enjoy a life-sized version (pop-up camper) of this beloved toy!

Kristen McMaster, 31
assistant professor, Department of Educational Psychology

When I was a child, my favorite toys were my Skipper dolls and my Breyer [model] horses. Skipper was jointed, so she could actually get on and ride. I also jumped my bike off ledges and over bumps in the sidewalk, pretending that I was stadium jumping. I can remember that I had really vivid play scenarios, although I didn’t supply dialogue out loud: it was almost like being in a dream, and my imagination supplied correct scaling, scenery, conversations, events, etc. Once I got a real horse, somewhere around seventh grade, I didn’t bother pretending anymore. Now, my nieces have many of the Breyer models that are still unbroken. I never grew out of the horse craziness, either—although I don’t own a horse right now, I definitely would jump at the chance if it presented itself!

Peggy Irish Ferdinand, 47
editor, Office of Educational Accountability/Department of Educational Psychology

Pam Stenhjem, 42
B.S., ’87, child psychology; associate director, Youth and Family Participation Network, National Center on Secondary Education and Transition, Institute on Community Integration

My favorite toy was my bicycle. I loved it because of the freedom it gave me in my neighborhood and the feeling it gave me: now that I could ride a bicycle, I was older! I don’t have the original first bicycle, but I have always had a bicycle. It has been a favorite possession for exactly the same reason I loved it when I was young: freedom in transportation and the wonderful feeling of exercise and watching things pass as I ride. I remember teaching my nephew how to ride his bike—I was there the day we took off the training wheels. Joseph was really scared…we ran alongside him holding onto the seat while he pedaled, and soon he just took off, happy happy happy!

Carol Leitschuh, over-40
research associate, Center on Early Education and Development, School of Kinesiology

I collected Sweet Secrets when I was 10 or so. They were little “gems” that opened up into dolls and animals. I loved the way that something could appear out of nothing. (Hide-and-seek was my favorite game, too.) My mom has them packed away in her attic and once she finds them, I’ll keep them for my future daughter—although I may have a hard time giving them up!

Carly McEathron, 26
B.S., ’02, foundations of education M.Ed. student

LEGOS were my favorite toy. Even though they were not introduced in the States until later in my childhood I loved them. All the LEGO sets in our house belonged to my brothers but I played with them, anyway. We built all kinds of things including a small house to put our baby frogs in (my mom made us let the frogs go when she found out). I think they helped developed my spatial reasoning—now I have a research interest in how construction toys affect children’s spatial reasoning.

Beth Robelia, 34
Ph.D. candidate and research assistant, science education, Department of Curriculum and Instruction

I recall three toys that were favorites of mine when I was three years old: a Tinkertoy set, and two stuffed animals—a gray elephant called Eddie, with a nylon stocking cap on his head, and a Panda Bear that felt like terry cloth. I am still an afficianado of Tinkertoys to this day. When I was three, I needed help sticking the rods into the spools. By the time I was a preteen, I could build anything in the instruction booklet. In my teens and later, I began to design my own things, such as working models of carnival rides, and ultimately I moved into abstract shapes in three dimensions, shapes that were not just two flat sides joined by crossbars. My dream is to build a functioning pendulum clock, but that will take many thousands of parts, and Tinkertoys are no longer manufactured in sets with large numbers of pieces.

David Perlman, 62
initial licensure student, secondary math education

In 1968, my father was working on a master’s degree in music which took us to Germany for about nine months. I was eight years old at the time. One of our stops was in Herford, a smaller city in north central Germany. We were at a festival or outdoor fair where someone was throwing out free balls to the hundreds of assembled people. I wanted one very badly and was moving around in hopes of getting one. Without luck, I met back up with Dad, who told me as luck had it, one came back his way and he got one for me. It was a cheap, soccer-sized ball—black and white—but one that was a favorite toy for years because of the trouble (and luck) my father had getting it for me.

Tom Conlon, 44
doctoral candidate, human resource development instructor, human resource development and business and industry education

I had a stuffed dog named Sammy—he was soft, squishy, and had ears that squeaked. I inherited him from my older brother, and I kept him on my bed for many years. After I grew up, he was there for any child to play with—and many did! I think he lasted until I was in my late 30s—at that point he was threadbare, the squeakers in his ears were long gone, and his stuffing was falling out.

Judy Cook, 48
B.S., ’90, child psychology; coordinator of the Parent-Child Research Project, Institute of Child Development

My favorite toy as a child was a very simple, wooden rocking chair I received for my second birthday and still have today. I remember thinking it was so wonderful that I had a chair “my size” and I especially loved to flip it over on its side, stand inside of the rockers and pretend that I was in an ice cream truck, dipping up ice cream from the side of the arm of the chair. Silly, but certainly one of my favorite imaginary games!

Tina Cassler, 32
M.A. student, comparative and international development education

My favorite toy was my “I Love Lucy” doll which I got when I was around four years old, in 1955. It was a sort of stuffed-rag doll, with a flared skirt that had a felt heart stitched on it that said: “I Love Lucy.” That TV show was all the rage then, of course, but I loved little Ricky, Lucy's son, who had been born as part of the show just when I was around three or four years old. The doll was soft and cuddly. I wouldn’t have known it then, but I probably loved it because Lucy was famous, part of the culture—and as a four-year-old, belonging to pop culture like that was important. We had just gotten a television a couple of years before that.

Angela Amado, 53
research associate, Institute on Community Integration

My favorite toy was a Tonka truck. My twin brother and I shared a dump truck, a front-end loader, and a pickup. In the vacant lot next to our childhood home, we spent endless summer hours with our trucks digging and hauling as we constructed roadways to nowhere. After a productive morning of work we would be called in for lunch, and I remember my happy anticipation, while having a bologna sandwich with my brother, of getting back to work on our project. My brother is now a construction engineer and I am a psychotherapist; similar jobs, if you think about it.

Dan Hess, 45
Ph.D. student, counseling and student personnel psychology

When I was nine my mom gave me a large Madame Alexander baby doll. “Pussycat” was her trademark name, but I named her Alison. Having been born in 1960, most of my dolls “did something” like talk, eat, wet, walk, twist, turn, and bend. That year I couldn’t decide—did I want a simple baby doll or the “Chrissey” doll with hair that really grows? My mom suggested this would be my main gift and so I should really think it over. When it came down to it, I couldn’t decide and left it up to my mom to surprise me. Lucky for me she chose the baby doll. Though I no longer have her I remember the relief I felt when I opened the unmistakeable box, lined with pink tissue, and found what it was to embrace a true secret friend. She required no batteries, her motor would not give out, and the effects of time on her lifelike hair and lashes would only make her more distinctively the “Alison” I had loved her into being.

Mary Leinfelder, 45
childcare full-time teacher, University of Minnesota Child Care Center

I remember a very special stuffed animal I called “Chopsie,” which was a cross between a dog and a bear. Chopsie accompanied our family on every trip, from the grocery store to summer vacations. The day Chopsie inadvertently fell out of the car during a morning of running errands with my mother was heartbreaking. My father spent hours retracing our path, but Chopsie was nowhere to be found. I will always remember not only my father’s persistence in attempting to locate the stuffed animal but also the sadness felt by everyone. Chopsie had become an important member of our family!

Tiffani Calmes, 24
M.Ed. student, youth development leadership

As a child of the ‘70s my favorite toy was the Shape-O Toy from Tupperware: a half-red, half-blue, ball-shaped toy in which you put bright yellow-colored shapes in correspondingly shaped holes. I loved using the handles on the ends to pull open the ball after I had filled it with all of the different shapes. When I got older I used to time myself to see how fast I could fill the ball. I even remember showing my little brother where to put the shapes when he was young. As they say, no child should grow up without one!

Tani Keenlyne Bialek, 34
M.Ed. student, human resource development