Toys Define the Fun of Life
By Anthony Gadson
PLYMOUTH � Toys have been part of children�s lives forever.
From the time the first stick became a pistol in the hands of a quick-drawing desperado in the backyard to a computer-generated Scooby Doo on a handheld computer, the games of life have been part of life.
The Marshall County Museum has toys from the 1850s to the present for their Toyland Treasures display, now showing at the corner of Michigan and Garro streets.
The display is set up for the Christmas season, but it will run until May so that children on field trips won�t miss it. The toys are all donated, loaned or owned by the Historical Society.
The displays are sorted in cases by the decades in which they appeared. You can see a baby rattle made of wood from the 1850s, then walk over and find a collection of He-Man action figures from the 1980s.
�We get all kinds of people in here to see the toys,� museum Executive Director Linda Rippy said. �No matter how old you are, you�ll find something that you can relate to.�
Displays of toy trucks, tea sets, trains, and board games are all on display. You can see a display with toys ranging from Lincoln Logs to Legos or antique cars to Hot Wheels.
The museum had also gotten its doll collection out of storage for the display. The dolls range from porcelain to the Cabbage Patch Kids.
�We don�t take them out of storage that much because they are very fragile and because of the elements,� Rippy said.
It took three months to get the display all set up, but Rippy still welcomes any unusual toys that people may want to loan for the display.
�We just ask that they call to see if we already have it, so we don�t have duplicates of something,� Rippy replied.
All the toys are labeled with numbers that coincide with a notebook located by the display. The viewers can look up information on each toy that is displayed.
�It gives you history in a good way,� Rippy commented. �The research sometimes took longer than getting the actual display set up�.
The museum has shown World War II, Industrial and School displays in the past, which usually stay up for about a year, but some cases are updated once a month.
�Some people have missed out on a lot of good exhibits because they don�t come on a regular basis,� Rippy observed.
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