What a Coincidence!

Talk about a coincidence! Yesterday I wrote about how I was trying to acquire a model that came from each one of our founding mothers' collections, saying that I only had left to find one from Ellen Hitchins and then this morning Teresa Rogers posted a blog post about Ellen in her own blog!

Teresa and I are friends (and I own some of her models now and she has some of mine), and she, too, is from the early days of the hobby. One of the nicest and kindest women I know, she is a wealth of early hobby history herself.  Her blog, The Model Horse History Project, is a place to find in-depth, well researched and accurate information on our early days, especially the history from the California branch of the hobby.

Teresa proxy bought these three Metlox Large Circus Horses for me at Clinky Mahem since I could not go.

And she picked up this tiny circus train with a jumping horse in the last car  at an estate sale and sent it to me because she knows I like circus horses. (See? I told you she was kind!)

I did not know she was working on a blog entry about Ellen nor did she know I was writing about Linda and would include Ellen in mine! (Apparently  Teresa asked some questions about a few of Ellen's models on Facebook, but I'm still digging out from having been hacked and not on Facebook much at the moment and didn't see what she'd written.)

Teresa's blog entry was fascinating - such a variety of models! Here's the link so you can glimpse models from way back and learn a little about Ellen, too.

A New Writing Project

After reading the history of Great Lakes Congress, LLC that I wrote earlier this year, Nancy Falzone asked if I would write down some of her earliest hobby memories for her.

Absolutely! Nancy is a dear friend and I am always happy to help her out.

The project was expanded to include other early hobbyists who were around when the hobby began crystalizing in the late 1960s/early 1970s. Nancy dubbed the writing project Mares' Tales and with help from Liz Cory, Jamie Rott, and Yvonne Rott, planned a get together at her home for early hobbyists to gather and share their memories of the very beginnings of our hobby.

A list of early hobbyists from North America was drawn up, and invitations were sent out. Since the gathering is to be held in Nancy's home and space is limited, we simply could not invite everyone who was around during those heady days of photo showing and SASEs. I plan to contact some of them and get their stories at a later date.

My goal is to get as many early hobby memories and stories recorded so that they can be shared with others as well as document our history. (Nancy Kelly, author of Exploring the Model Horse Hobby, has offered to take photos throughout the day.) Our focus is on Ellen Hitchins and Simone Smiljanic who ran IMPHSA (International Model Photo Showing Association) and Linda Walter who wrote The Model Showers Journal (later called The Model Horse Showers Journal), THE hobby publication that we all subscribed to and eagerly checked our mailboxes for every month. And, of course, Nancy Falzone's memories, since that is how this project started!

Why not Marney Walerius? Many hobbyists who were not around in those days refer to her as the "mother" of the model horse hobby and have no idea of the contributions that Ellen, Simmie, and Linda made in getting this hobby organized and which Marney built upon. Certainly Marney did a lot in moving the hobby forward and I do want to record memories of her, too, but I will do that at a later date. She is the fourth person in what I and other older hobbyists consider to be the four pillars of our hobby.

Stay tuned for some blog entries from the gathering. Since I have to travel, I may not post anything tomorrow, but check back again Monday for photos and write-up about the Mares and Tales gathering of early hobby folks. I think you will enjoy it.

Four Pillars and a Pair of Wings - the Twin Pillars

One of the things I was happiest at seeing in Nancy Kelly's new book Exploring the Model Horse Hobby was that she included three women who are often overlooked as founders of our hobby. Indeed, in my opinion, two of them ARE the hobby founders and we will look at them today.

Back in the 1960s, there were collectors but we had no internet to gather us and were mostly unaware of each other. I had two collector friends and we used to throw our models into grocery bags, sling them over the handlebars of our bikes, and pedal to each other's homes for an afternoon of showing. (Go here to read a more detailed post on that.)

Long distance phone calls (calls made outside of your immediate town and community) were very expensive and not a practical option for connecting with other hobbyists. But we did have snail mail (simply called "mail" back then) and that is how we began to connect with one another, always enclosing a SASE (self addressed stamped envelope) for a reply.

Ellen Hitchins and Simone Smiljanic (called Simi at the time) started the very first photo showing club and asked Horse and Rider magazine's editor Ray Rich to judge their annual championship show. Rich agreed and then published this article about his experience in 1970.

I've kept my copy of the magazine and the article in my hobby memorabilia ever since it was published!

I was a subscriber to Horse and Rider, and that article provided my first connection to collectors outside of my local circle of friends and to the beginnings of the formalizing hobby. And I was not the only person for whom this was the entry point - the clubs and photo shows began growing, sales lists were requested and sent, sire and dam lists were drawn up (with stud fees of a dime or so), and newsletters were typed. (I formed and ran ABMHSA, All Breeds Model Horse Showers Association, from 1972-1975, passing the club on when I went off to college.) They were heady times, and every day when I got home from school I would find I'd gotten mail - hobby business to attend to. (Before homework, of course!)

Due to their work in gathering the earliest collectors into the exciting new hobby of model horses, I have always credited Ellen Hitchins and Simi Smiljanic as the founders of the formalized hobby. Their leadership drew together all these pockets of collectors from across the country (and later the world) into the group we now simply refer to as "the hobby."

These ladies are twin pillars and definitely the hobby's "grandmothers."

Tomorrow's blog post - Marney Walerius, the third pillar. 

The Hobby's Early Beginnings - IMPHSA

While people had been collecting model horses since Hartland and Breyer began making them, and small backyard/bedroom/family room live shows had been happening on an informal basis in the 1960s, it was Ellen Hitchins and Simone (Simi, at the time) who started the first formal hobby organization.

Called IMPHSA (International Model Photo Showers Association), it bridged the distance between collectors by using the ingenious idea of photo showing models - taking pictures of them, writing the model's name, your name and address, and the classes it was to be entered in on the back, and then sending the photos along with a SASE (self addressed stamped envelope) to the show holder. The photos would be placed in their respective classes and judged, then returned with ribbons and awards by using the SASE. (Generally, we included an extra stamp or two to cover any extra postage that was needed.)

Ellen and Simi had the brilliant idea of asking Ray Rich, an editor at Horse and Rider magazine, to judge their international championship photo show. Their idea, and Rich's agreement to judge, would lead to my introduction to the infant hobby and for many other people as well.

I had been a subscriber to Horse and Rider since buying my first issue at Hook's Drug Store in West Lafayette.

My first issue - I read and reread and reread this copy (as you can probably tell.) I loved it so much, and had just gotten my first horse, Amy, in February of 1970 that I immediately subscribed.  And I am so glad I did because it helped me find the other early hobbyists. 

Although, when I opened that October issue and scanned its table of contents, I had no idea that it would change my collecting for a lifetime.

Breyers, Hagen Renakers, Beswicks, and Hartlands were represented. There were eight classes, and six were published in the magazine. I already had the Adios and Hartland, but had never seen a Hagen Renaker or Beswick before. (Ellen's Appaloosa Beswick became a piece I sought after for years, finally buying one in the 1990s.)

Eight classes! And they were very broad based - English and Western Pleasure, Foals, Pleasure Model, Mares, and Stallions. I wonder what the other two classes were? And just think about today's classes. Can you imagine just having eight at your championship show?

As I said in an earlier post, Ellen and Simi deserve far more credit than they are given for being so pivotal to the foundation of our hobby. This 1970 article is proof of that.

A Letter from Marney

Progress on cleaning and sorting the hobby closet continues, but it is SLOW. The reason? I keep running across treasures like this:

A letter from Marney Walerius!

She and I had corresponded when she was alive, and this letter was in response to two queries I had had - if she knew what Ellen Hitchins and Simi (Simone) Smiljanic, the founders of IMPHSA (International Model Photo Horse Showers Association, the club that introduced most early hobbyists to photo showing and to each other in 1970) were doing ...

... and a question about the book she was writing and when it would be published. She responded at length to both questions, something she was known for doing, and I think it was her willingness to take time to correspond with other early hobbyists and the effect that that had on our hobby (along with her Model Horse Congress shows) that brought her to prominence and sustains her memory all these years after her passing.

Marney is considered by many to be the "mother" of the model horse hobby, but I disagree. She came to hobbyists' notice after Ellen and Simi had established their club, and while she was a tremendous influence on many people and now seems to overshadow them and their contributions, they really were the ones who helped early collectors find each other and organize the beginnings of the hobby.

I mean no disrespect to Marney - there is no question that she did a lot herself to grow our hobby, and she was fun to correspond with. But without Ellen and Simi, the hobby would not have gained such an early following which later came to fruition in the wonderful, many faceted hobby of today.

Tomorrow I will post the 1970  Horse and Rider magazine about Ellen, Simi, and IMPHSA that introduced me as well as many other early hobbyists to the world of photo showing.

The Passing of a Long Time Hobbyist

The formalized, organized model horse hobby had its beginning in the late 1960s when Ellen Hitchins and Simone (Simi, back then) Smiljanic organized their club,  IMPHSA (International Model Photo Horse Show Association.) While backyard/in-home shows had been going on for some time, and collecting model horses had been, too, it was these two women who really made the hobby happen by pulling early collectors together from across the country (and later, the world) into organized hobby clubs.

I started collecting in 1963 and had done in-home live shows with my two friends, Carol and Bobbie, in the 1960s, but I still remember that heady feeling of discovering that there were other people like the three of us who were doing the same thing, and that I could join them by taking pictures of my horses and mailing them to shows. Such fun days those were!

Fast forward fifty odd years or so and many of us who were part of that scene are still here. But, we are aging, and the hobby has begun to lose some of its earliest members. Ellen passed away some time ago as did Marney. Simi is still with us but has serious health issues. (She is still active in Facebook hobby groups, though.)

Very recently we lost another early hobby member, one who customized and made beautiful tack. Carol Howard passed away in March.

Carol and I are both members of the same faith - Mormons. There are a fair number of us in the hobby, and that double bond of religious beliefs coupled with our love of model horses has made for some wonderful friendships.

Carol made contributions to the early hobby that continued on to current times. She will be missed.