Erector Sets and Electric Trains

While I was a young boy I was attracted to such toys as Erector sets and electric trains. I was given an Erector set, perhaps as a Christmas present, but it was one of the smaller or intermediate sets. The larger set which I craved came with a small electric motor for activating the steam shovel or other item that had been made from the parts of the set. This desire on my part was never fulfilled.

I recall that one of the boys of my age had such a set and on one occasion I saw what he had made with it and was enthralled. Although I envied him his Erector set I surely didn’t envy him his later boyhood experience. His father was a rural mail carrier, a good stable job back at the time, and had in addition the income from some farm property — probably an inheritance. The father started to speculate on the Fort Dodge Board of Trade, lost the farm and the family home, and committed suicide.

My friend, his mother and sister had to move in with his mother’s parents as a place to live. His grandfather was Jonas Lindquist who had operated a clothing store in Gowrie for a long time — at the time of Clare’s father’s suicide he may have retired from the business.

I sort of lost touch with Clare in later years — he was retained a grade at school so he was no longer in my class and after our move to the farm I had limited contact with the boys I had played with in Gowrie.

Clare died quite some time ago. He died at a relatively early age. I think his sister still lives in the Twin Cities — she was Vivian’s grade and I think Vivian always liked and admired her.

As to electric trains my interest was aroused by the set Lennarson and Johnson (one of the two hardware stores in Gowrie in my youth) always set up in their window at Christmas. It appeared year after year, perhaps it was not for sale or was too expensive for the Gowrie clientele. It was a Lionel train, green as I recall.

During this time I had a subscription to American Boy magazine, and in this magazine there would be advertisements for both the Lionel and American Flyer electric trains. These usually offered a free booklet describing the various train sets and other items they had for sale and I sent for the booklets and dreamed of the trains shown. There was one train set for $13 and I calculated that if I were to save my weekly allowance for a full year I would have enough saved to purchase it — of course this never materialized.



I guess if I had saved the little booklets they might now be worth as much as some of the trains described in them. I seem to recall having read about these being real collector’s items.