50th Anniversary: Transitioning to Windsong

In January, 1970, my family moved out into the country and onto 9 acres. Our new home was up on a moraine and nestled up to a woods that to this day is still wild. At the base of the moraine was the floodplain of the Wabash River and our land included a long stretch of beach along its banks. I was a lucky girl.

I struggled to make friends at my new school, but I couldn't seem to find anyone who shared the same interests as me or who didn't already have a group of friends. They just didn't seem interested in including someone new, and I didn't know how to bridge the gap. It didn't help that I was terribly shy. It was a lonely time.

Still, I had my family, and within two months, my dream came true. I had a horse!

Amy was a five year old Appaloosa mare. She remained with us until she died in 1991. I spent hours with her, and I can still remember sitting in school planning on what I would do with her as soon as school let out and I could go home. Not only was she the horse of my dreams, but she  was a bright spot in my life.

Later that same year, I opened my Horse & Rider magazine and came across the article on IMPHSA, Ellen Hitchins and Simone Smiljanic's club. Having put Pawnee Stables away when we moved, I was ready for a more grown up way of interacting with my collection. IMPHSA was perfect and filled the loneliness gap for several years. (I did finally find folks at school who became friends and who still are to this day.) With IMPHSA, I had penpals who soon became friends and was busy taking photos of my models and entering them into photo shows. I was in heaven!

A new name for my stable was needed. I noticed that everyone in the fledgling hobby had fancy stable names (some stables even had divisions, just like real barns sometimes do.) I wanted a name that reflected where I lived and the river. "Wabash Stables" didn't seem quite right. As I thought about a new name, I remember looking at the huge, ancient cottonwoods that grew along the river. I loved to walk under them and listen to the wind rustle the leaves. Maybe something like that?

And then the perfect name came to me - Windsong Stables.

Now, at the time, there was a perfume being heavily marketed called "Windsong."  It had a catchy song with a phrase that went, "Her Windsong stays on my mind."

An early Windsong commercial.

That commercial may have influenced my stable's name - I really don't remember. But I loved the name back then, and I still love it now. In the 1980s I considered changing my stable name again to reflect me as a mom with six kids and our Illinois home, but nothing seemed right. It's been Windsong since 1970 and it will stay so the rest of my life.

I had also noticed that most hobbyists had address labels with their stable names on them. Usually there was a horse figure on the address labels, too. Oh, how I wanted to have my own! 

I was thrilled when my dad got me this stamp with my stable name and horse head. (It was in with the Pawnee Stables things, and believe it or not, the ink was still usable!)

Windsong Stables was thriving in the model horse hobby and so was I. I had friends, I had things to do, I had Amy, and life was terrific. Little did I know that, 50 years later, I would still have Windsong, still be a part of the model horse hobby, and still be friends with some of those other girls who were around back then, too.

Photo showing is on the docket for the next anniversary post. And don't forget to comment so you can be entered in the drawing for the circus horse haversack!