Indiana, a Hotbed of Showing: the Earliest Days

Live showing in Indiana can be documented back to 1966 and right here in West Lafayette. While it may have occurred earlier than that, I was only 9 and had no connections to any other collectors and no knowledge of any other shows. But I can document that, as a fourth grader, I was putting my models, tack, and doll riders into grocery bags, hopping onto my bike, and heading over to my friend, Bobbie Sue's home for a day of model horse showing.

Here's a throwback post about those in-home shows we held.

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Today I was out running errands and drove past the neighborhood where my old hobby buddy, Bobbie, used to live, and I decided to drive around and take some photos. I have a lot of happy memories there, including having her house be the site of the very first live shows in our part of Indiana.

I couldn't get into the house for pictures as my friend has long since moved away, but I sure could take photos of the outside!

This is the place where most of the live shows were held back in the 1960s.

A few others were held in my home, but most were here. The upstairs front window on the left and the side of the house were Bobbie's bedroom and where we gathered for the shows. (Carol Holmes, who lived around the corner, also came. Both girls left the horse world behind in their teen years.) The three of us met in 4th grade, discovered we all loved horses, I showed them my carpet herd, and Breyer gained a couple of new customers. Our live shows started in 1966.

 

The Vances' home, 705 Avondale Drive, West Lafayette, Indiana.

Not only did Bobbie collect, she also got a real horse like me, Starbuck, in 1971. (Named after a character in the classic book Moby Dick and long before the coffee shop started up.) Starbuck was a big-boned bay gelding whose breeding was unknown; I often thought he had some draft horse in him.

Bobbie boarded her horse outside of town a short distance from her home, and I had Amy at my home in the other direction. We liked to "meet in the middle" and go on rides together.  And most fun of all, we used to have horsey sleepovers at her house!

This is a view of Bobbie's back yard, taken from around the corner and zoomed in. The chain link fence is still there, but the trees have really grown! (The house was brand new in the 1960s.)

Sometimes after our ride together, we'd head to Bobbie's home and take the horses into the back yard through this entrance on the west side of the house. We'd untack and turn the horses loose in the back yard with a bucket of water and plenty of grazing!

But the fun wasn't over! We'd eat dinner and my mom would drop off some clothes for me, and then we'd play with Bobbie's collection and stay up late. And then...

We'd go for a late night ride in the dark. I LOVED doing that!

Since it was a new neighborhood there was very little traffic, especially after dark. There were streetlights, too, and so we felt safe riding down the streets together.

Cumberland Avenue, which stretched about a half mile in either direction directly behind Bobbie's home, had a grassy median, and we loved to canter down it. (Dodging the occasional telephone pole, of course.) Back then it was all grass and had no other plantings.

Or, we'd ride down to the new neighborhood park that had just been built and ride around in it.

 Lommel Park, West Lafayette, Indiana

Back then, a long line of saplings had been planted across a bare stretch of ground, and Bobbie and I would use them to pole bend on Amy and Starbuck. A few of the trees still remain, but they're no longer those skinny saplings!

When we finished playing with our horses in the park, we'd ride around the neighborhood some more and then head back to Bobbie's home, untack, and turn out the horses before going to bed. (I have often wondered what Bobbie's neighbors thought about seeing horses next door.)

The next morning I would ride home after breakfast and Bobbie would ride Starbuck back to his boarding place, and we'd look forward to doing it all again.

Such fun times. I am smiling as I write.

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Tomorrow we will continue this series with either a look at one of the live shows currently being held in Indiana or (if I can find them) a look at the tack, props, and dolls we used for our live shows.

Stay 'tooned!