Winchester, TN Woman’s Toy Collection Spans the Globe

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Crocia Roberson, Tin-Can Trinkets, toys

When Crocia Roberson worked as a Tennessee agricultural Extension agent, she taught one of her 4-H clubs a program on money management.

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She posed this problem to her 4-Hers: You want to go to the movies on Saturday, but you don’t have enough money. What do you do?

“Almost every one of those kids said watch TV,” Roberson recalls, shaking her head. “That was the extent of their imagination.”

At that moment, the Winchester, Tenn., resident decided to make it her job to expand their minds, encouraging the children to build their own toys, just as she had done in the BTV – before television – generation.

Tin-Can Trinkets

“I grew up in a little cove over in the Sequatchie Valley, where the only way to see out was to look straight up,” Roberson says, her blue eyes twinkling. “We had tin-can telephones, button-on-a-string, and toss-and-catch toys made just using what you had.”

A bucket in her back room overflows with tin-can toys, many of the same items she used to inspire her 4-H club.

During her 35 years as an Extension agent, Roberson crafted countless toys for her programs, from an ice-cream freezer made out of a coffee can to tin-can stilts, better known as Tommy-walkers or Johnny-walkers.

She also has a host of homemade instruments: “A tom-tom to carry around your neck … a rhythm game made of tuna-fish cans, a spool and lummi sticks … a can-jo.” The latter consists of a can fashioned into a banjo, complete with numbered frets.

She then pulls out what looks like an old tree stump, calling it a “dumbull.”

“It’s an old cowhide on a hollow log of a gum tree,” she says, noting the hole in the middle of it with a long string attached. “You put beeswax on the string and …” Pulling on the string, the dumbull creates a loud roaring noise.

“You get different sounds according to what you make it out of,” explains Roberson as she rummages through her collection of dumbulls made using everything from a Quaker oats container to a Pringles can.

Grinning, she adds, “Ask anyone who knows what it is, and they can tell you a funny story about a dumbull.”

Crocia Roberson toys

 

On Top of the World

Many of Roberson’s toys are like the dumbulls – various takes on one concept.

A light-up cabinet displays her collection of spinning tops, from tiny “thumb tops” to more elaborate “helper tops.”

Listing off the places from where her tops came, she proves herself to be quite the globetrotter. France, Japan, New Zealand – the list goes on and on.

“When I graduated from high school, I never dreamed I’d ever see Washington, D.C.,” she reveals. But she’s seen far beyond the nation’s capital – a trip to Russia four years ago marked her 18th country visited.

Her trip to the cities of Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod was one of many coordinated through The Friendship Force International, an organization in which participants can visit and host people from other countries.

“The goal is to learn to accept other cultures,” says Roberson, who served as a teacher in the two Russian cities she visited.

Throughout her travels, she handpicked much of her collection, which includes Russian matrioshka (or nesting) dolls depicting their version of “The Gingerbread Man” story, a stick-horse from Colombia and, aptly, a toy peddler from Italy.

Her toys hail from at least 35 countries, including those she hasn’t visited, and many of her toys from around the world were found right here in Tennessee.

Take her collection of mancala boards, a count-and-capture game often played with marbles. One of the rustic-looking boards has an etching that reads “Banguio City,” the third largest city in the Philippines. Roberson paid less than $10 for the board at an antique store in Bell Buckle.

“In the Philippines, they play it at a time of death to raise the spirits of the deceased,” says Roberson. “If you don’t, the spirits will come back to visit you.”

Mancala is one of the oldest games in the world, dating back to between the sixth and seventh century A.D., according to some sources. But for years, Roberson didn’t know the name of the game: “We just called it the two-player marble game.”

Carving Her Niche
Roberson played mancala when she attended 4-H camp in Crossville, but when she went back to visit a few years ago, realized the game had been long forgotten.

“The kids were crying about being bored and homesick,” she recalls. Roberson was able to track down the old game boards, including fox-and-geese, Chinese checkers and mancala. After cleaning and painting the boards, she contacted some of her former campmates to remember how to play the games, which were a hit with today’s 4-Hers.

“They invited me back to camp after I was retired, just so I could bring the games,” she laughs.

Roberson then decided she would once again use BTV toys to impact the lives of 4-H members – this time, by making game boards.

Crocia Roberson toys

 

As a member of the Tennessee Valley Woodworkers, she had help designing and building cabinets to hold the games. But she has spent the past seven years carving her place in 4-H history – literally. So far, she’s made about 140 boards – 24 different games and around 35 boards for each of the state’s four 4-H camps.

She takes pride in knowing that her work impacts the lives of campers.

“A little kid, one who doesn’t communicate very well, will sit down and start playing with the marbles,” she says. “And then another kid will join him, and they’ll interact.”

She adds that the purpose of the activity is to teach children personal responsibility and respect for property, as they must set up the game for the next player.

“They learn by having so much fun they don’t realize they’re learning,” she says.

After all, having fun and bringing joy to others means a lot to a toymaker and collector.

But don’t ask this toy hobbyist to choose just one favorite item.

“They’re like children,” Roberson says, smiling. “Each one’s unique.”

Pausing, she adds, “My favorite toy is my next one.”

Globe-Trottin’

Many of Roberson’s travels were organized through The Friendship Force International, which has three clubs in Tennessee: Knoxville, Memphis and Roberson’s South Central group. For more information, visit www.thefriendshipforce.org.

Gee Haw!

On a visit to Ichihara, Japan, Roberson met the city’s mayor, bringing along her gee haw whimmy diddles.

“It’s a good conversation starter,” she says.

If you’re not familiar with the toy (also known as a whimmy-doodle, a hooey stick and oodles of other names), it’s a wooden, grooved stick with a spinner on the end. Rubbing a smaller stick on the toy creates a loud noise and causes the propeller to twirl either gee (right) or haw (left). But it’s not an easy instrument to play.

This rhythm instrument is popular in Appalachia, which is home to the world “gee haw whimmy diddle” competition, held during Heritage Weekend at the Folk Art Center in Asheville, N.C.

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