When Piggy Banks Were Pretty

Evelyn's piggy bank

My grandparents, Rosmer and Evelyn, didn't live close enough to be convenient babysitters, so it wasn't often that my parents left my sister and me to stay at their home. On the rare occasions when they did, Rosmer would open his old Murphy bed for us to sleep in. The bed was manufactured in 1883 by the A.H. Andrews & Co. of New York. It had belonged to Rosmer's family in Pennsylvania before he brought it to Michigan. Moving it must have been quite a project.

By the time I had a home of my own, the bed had been moved to my parents' house. My mother said I could have it, but the way my house was constructed, there was no way to get the huge bed into either door, so it has remained in my parents' breezeway for the past 35 years or so. It's still in beautiful condition.

Even as a child I admired the bed, and I liked my grandfather's desk too. It had interesting little cubbyholes to put things in. In one of the cubbyholes, he kept his Put & Take spinner. Since toys were hard to come by at their house, this game was interesting to me.

Put & Take is said to have been invented by a soldier during World War I. It became very popular in the 1920s and 1930s. Players ante up (pennies, candies, poker chips, or whatever) and then, in turn, spin the six-sided top and follow the instruction on the side that's up when it lands: put one (more ante into the pot), put two, take one, take two, all put (in one version of the game, this means the player must double what's in the pot; in another version, it means all players must put another one into the pot), or take all (which ends that game and players must ante up again to start a new game).

Another thing I liked at their house was my grandmother's piggy bank. I have no idea when or where she got it. It belongs to me now and, although it's a bit chipped, it's still the prettiest piggy bank I've ever seen.