History Mystery

What did Ozark pioneer kids do for fun?

Kids have always played, as a way of learning things they need to know and of just having fun. Those long-ago kids didn’t have the sorts of complicated amusements available to today’s youngsters, but they knew how to use their imaginations with what was at hand to have a good time. A byword for pioneers was “make what you need or make do with what you have,” and that applied to kids’ fun, too.

Every farmstead in the Ozarks grew a lot of corn to support their “hog and hominy” diet. The shucks and cobs from that corn could be used to make a lot of different toys. With a gourd for a head, corncobs held together with wire or string formed the body of a doll. Imagination supplied the facial expressions. Many little girls learned to sew while making clothes and a quilt for her corncob or rag dolly. Dried cornshucks could be used for making smaller dolls. Cobs were sliced up to put checkers on a checkerboard made of scraps of wood or canvas.

The pocket knife carried by every boy was used to carve toys out of wood. A favorite was the spinning top called a “dancer.” (If you know a woodworker, instructions for the dancer are in our "How To" section.)

Even a little piece of string could be the source of great fun. Tied into a loop, it could amuse for hours with string figures like witch’s broom or Jacob’s ladder.

If Mama had a big button or Dad would help you cut a wooden disk, you could thread your string through the holes and pass the time with a homemade “whirligig,” a toy with a history stretching back to the 16th century in America, when they were made of coins too old or too thin to be of value any more. (see Button How To and Make-Do on this website).

Almost anything—buckeyes, dried beans, rocks, sticks—could be used for counting games that taught mathematics, too.

You could play jump rope with a grapevine. A lot of jump rope rhymes also teach things like rhythm, rhyming, letters, counting. Hand-clapping games like "Miss Mary Mack" serve many of the same purposes for two children without a grapevine!

“Miss Mary Mack, dressed in black,
Silver buttons up and down her back,
Combed her hair, broke the comb,
Gonna get a whuppin’ when Mama comes home.”

Alphabet games were (still are!) another fun way to learn your letters and exercise your mind.

“A my name is Alice, my best friend’s name is Albert,
we come from Alabama, and we’re bringing Apples.”
“B my name is Bobby, my best friend’s name is Betty,
we come from Boston, and we’re bringing Baked Beans.”

And so forth. To complicate it, each player has to remember the names of all the others before him or her.

"The Minister’s Cat" is another alphabet game.

“The minister’s cat is an Alley cat.”
“The minister’s cat is a Bouncy cat.”
“The minister’s cat is a Calico cat.”

To make it more difficult, each successive player has to come up with not only a new word, but all the descriptives that went before. For another, still harder, round you can double adjectives, for example, Big Bouncy cat, Cuddly Calico cat.

Check it out!
American Folk Toys (and How to Make Them) by Dick Schnacke of Mountain Craft Shop in New Martinsville, West Virginia, 1973.

Pioneer Crafts by Barbara Greenwood, Kids Can Press, 1997.

Easy-to-Make Old-Fashioned Toys by Eugene F. Provenzo, Jr., and Asterie Baker Provenzo, Dover Publications, Inc., 1979.

Pioneer Days: Discover the Past with Fun Projects, Games, Activities, and Recipes by David C. King, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1997.

Cat’s Cradle: A Book of String Figures by Anne Akers Johnson, published by Klutz, Inc., 1993.

Miss Mary Mack and Anna Banana: 101 Jump-Rope Rhymes, companion books by Joanna Cole & Stephanie Calmenson, Beech Tree Books, 1990.

American Folk Toys by John R. Nelson, Taunton Press, 1998.

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