My brother was a CHAMPION marble player. The superintendent of our school (grades 1-12), had to make a rule against playing marbles for “keeps”; as he was winning everyone else’s marbles. He stored them in a trunk in our smokehouse. I remember looking at them for hours. I did not compete with him…I was more into dolls playing house and paper dolls. I remember two of my Uncles taking him on, with both grown men losing the contest and marveling at his skills. He had cat eyes, stripes, steelies, ‘potties, and log rollers. I am now 81 years old and he is 83.
—Betsy Wilson
Not many children playing with marbles today that I’m aware of. Every once in a while I find one out in the garden or in the bottom of a pile of junk in a drawer or container.
I never played marbles but I’ve always loved to hold them in my hand and marvel at the colors.
When I was young my older brother Steve and his friends played marbles at school. I don’t remember Paul and his friends playing but maybe they did.
The girls and I love to dig around old homeplaces. Along with lots of broken glass a marble will often turn up.
Over the years I’ve written about marbles a few times. Here’s a list of posts about marbles.
- The Magic of Marbles (Guestpost by Jim Casada)
- Making Marbles Out of Rocks
- Marble Games
Last night’s video: The BEST Cheese Potatoes – Easy & Yummy!
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When someone mentions marbles it makes me think of my granny Beth and pa Ed’s old trailer they lived in when I was growing up. The steps had marbles embedded in the cement. All different colors of them…quite intriguing to a kid. I spent a good amount of time as a child trying my best to dig them out. Never succeeded but pa Ed must have thought I eventually would because he’d holler at me to quit it if he caught me trying. They’re both passed away now and the home place sold but the last time I was there after granny passed I took several pictures of those old marble steps to look back on and remember my marble digging days
I played marbles as a chap but didn’t keep any. They made wonderful slingshot ammunition. An adult friend shot one through his garage door with his muzzle-loading rifle, and the marble did not shatter, which surprised me.
Marbles! Brings back a couple of memories.
There was an old steamer trunk in our attic. The kind that had space for hangers and a bunch of drawers. One of the bottom drawers was lipping-full of marbles. Apparently one or more of my older brothers was good at playing for keeps. Although I played, I was only a fair shooter. I do remember all the guys with bags of marbles on the playground in elementary school. Many of those bags originally held tobacco for roll your own cigarettes. The drawstrings were good for keeping marbles from falling out. The size was good too because they held relatively few marbles . . . about as many as you wanted to lose if you were having bad luck. The best shooters carried extra empty bags to hold their winnings.
In my grade school days they organized and held city-wide single elimination marble shooting competitions. The city winner got his photo in the newspaper.
Blessings to all . . . and especially for Miss Cindy.
Hi Tipper, I played marbles a bit at school. I wasn’t very good at it but two of the boys in my class would play with me. One of those boys and his family up and disappeared from this area in the middle of the night when the family went bankrupt and I often wonder what happened to him
Here at home, we were just talking about playing marbles the other day when we were growing up. During recess, us girls played with them as much as the boys, sometimes we played against each other. My favorite one was the cat’s eye. Fun times. Tipper, I also made cheese fries last night for supper. That is one of our new favorite sides. It’s so quick and easy. Went great with our hotdogs. They are delicious! Continued prayers for Miss Cindy and all of you.
I was a less-than-proficient marbler. My brother, on the other hand, was a savant. He would come home from school daily with his pockets bulging with marbles. I always had plenty of slingshot ammunition, thanks to him.
I had marbles as a child. I loved the cats eyes most but I had a couple of other favorites that I just loved the colors. Even though I played with the boys in my neighborhood at least through 4th. grade, I never played marbles with them. I used my marbles to outline “rooms” of a house on the floor. The house was for my paper dolls and I propped them up in the various room using a couple of very old tall wooden spools. I don’t know what those spools had been used for – maybe from a textile factory? I wished that I had more of them because after my two favorite movie star paper dolls got propped up against the tall spools, the other paper dolls just had their heads resting on regular size Coats and Clark wooden spools from my mother’s sewing box. One of my girl friends played with her paper dolls in a similar way but used her mother’s costume jewelry to outline the rooms. Long necklaces were very handy for that. I don’t remember my mother having a jewelry box or any jewelry of any kind except her watch and wedding ring.
We lived into our house with just the subfloor for several years. My sister and I played with my marbles in the living room until most of them had fallen through the cracks to the basement. We would retrieve them and start over. One day we had been playing and left them for some reason. (lunch, snack, ?) The pastor visited and stepped on some and fell. He was a very large man, probably 300 or more pounds. Mom was so embarrassed. I can still hear the THUD! and feel the house shake when I think of it.
Loved marbles and still do – just for their looks and shine. I had to link back and read Jim’s Marble story from 2018 and enjoyed it so much. Left my comment there by mistake. Appreciated the history of the marble terms very much!
Log Carts and Rice and Tomatoes were favorite marbles!!!!
I have a mason jar full of marbles that my husband had from his youth. I have certainly admired them when I was a young kid but I played more with my dolls and baby animals. Tipper, I have certainly enjoyed reading your cookbook and seeing all the pictures in it. Since I know my Daddy’s people raised their pigs and had a hog killing day on a cold day but didn’t have a picture of any of it just the picture in my mind’s eye of their descriptive stories, it sure meant something to me to see that HUGE hog hung up for their processing. Love the cookbook!
While I was reading this post and the other posts you did on marbles, I got to thinking just how many games there are using spheres. Marbles, Jacks, Billards, Golf, Baseball, Basketball, Tennis, the list goes on. Then there’s my dog who can’t get enough of chasing them. Have a great Memorial Day Weekend. Thank you to all of you who have served. Ah! musket balls.
My mother (born in 1919) said she played marbles so much as a girl that she almost wore a hole in the nail on her thumb. She didn’t say if she played for keeps. I wish I had asked more questions.
Gary, all of us wished we had asked more questions.
Marbles were still fairly common when I was a boy. Dad and us two boys played marble in the barn hall on rainy days but Dad shot so hard he busted our marbles up. I think probably I posted this before once but there was an old man I would see at church that had a cane with four or five marbles in a ‘cage’ just under the handle. I guess they must have been pushed in while the wood was still green and flexible. Anyway, I was fascinated by them. Marbles are also a pretty filling in the base of a kerosene lamp converted to electric.
I used them as beach balls for my Barbie. My brother didn’t play marbles.
When I was in grammar school, the boys played marbles and the girls played another marble game called Chinese checkers. Those are wonderful memories!
Continued prayers for Miss Cindy and all the family✝️ Excited to see you tomorrow!
We played marbles at Antioch School in Union County Ga late 40’s early 50’s…me and the Floyd boys, Johnny Nation and others..my mother, Alice Mauney Byers was the only teacher…no playing for keeps….sometimes somebody would yell “grabs”.. and snatch up all the marbles……my mother stopped that too!!
I too never played marbles, but my first cousin Charles was the MARBLE CHAMPION of VIRGINIA once and he won a new bicycle. I only know that because I was nosing through mommy’s memory box and pictures and found his picture (the proudest smile you ever saw) and a newspaper article telling about it. He went on to Viet Nam and he’s been lucky most of his life. If and when I see a marble, I pick it up, but not nearly as often as I used to come across these tiny treasures. BTW, I read the cookbook reviews on AMAZON and they are all stellar 5 star. Congratulations on the success and Tipper, you too are a fortunate and lucky lady , I do believe.
This post brought back memories!! I use to play ‘keepers’. We boys would take a stick and draw a ~2′ diameter circle in the red clay and have a ‘shoot-out’. One of the main rules was that u could not use a ‘shooter’ (larger than standard) marble and no ‘do-overs’. I was quite good and amassed a large collection of marbles….Cat eyes were my favorite. Good times!
That is a wonderful memory form Betsy Wilson. I remember one of my brothers playing marbles. He wasn’t a champion but he played fairly well. I tried many times to just play the game, however, like Betsy and Tipper I was more fascinated by their beautiful colors than actually playing with them.
Betsy’s story brings back good memories of my own childhood playing with marbles. I had forgotten about playing marbles since like you said Tipper one doesn’t see kids playing with them anymore. Thank you for sharing Betsy’s memorable story with us all.
I never played marbles either when I was growing up. Tipper, I thought of you the other day while hoeing out my small garden, I dug up the top of an old spark plug-maybe for a T Model- and a piece of metal from a mule harness. This is for Gloria , it was late last night before I saw you reply comment to me from yesterday. Yes, everyone of the regular members of my Baptist Church have had their favorite seats all of my life-69 years. I think this is true for all Baptist Churches and some other Denominations too. I have set on the back row pew along the right side wall row for about 55 years. I always teased my precious wife and told her God punished me for sitting on the back row. When I was 18 years old, I was sitting there one night in January of 1972 checking out the girls, not listening to anything the preacher said and my eyes locked on her and never left. Even though she has passed away 2 years ago, I can not image another lady ever being a part of my life. I like to joke and say in a Baptist Church visitors are always welcome as long as they don’t sit in my seat! Why does my pew get called the back row, when it is the closest one to the front door?
I didn’t play marbles. But I liked to collect them. My kids had a wooden set with holes for marbles. You could set them up into all kinds of figures and mazes. My kids still have some of their favorites. I’ve moved several times and find them when I pack and unpack and I keep every one!
I have an old bell jar full of very old marbles on my mantle! Great grandfather Pappy taught his sons marbles, grandfather Pa taught my daddy, daddy taught me! I have not played marbles for years, but that old jar of marbles serves to keep me among pleasant memories & consider all those little hands of my kin playing thousands of marbles over 100 + years! Also have the old Lincoln logs and hand carved hand painted dominoes! Just to walk by them puts joyous memories afresh in my mind.
Gosh, I hadn’t thought about marbles in a long time. We, girls, played jacks mostly and there is not more fun than stepping on one. Some of the old games are so fun and if you are having fun the time slips away. We now get together and play NERTZ…a fun card game that can include older and younger….a fast game. Have a wonderful day and give Granny and Miss Cindy my prayers, I think about them often during the day. God Bless
My Father loved marbles. He collected quite a few that he found at flea markets and antique stores. He kept some on the porch in a metal dish. Sometimes we would find a critter had picked up a marble and dropped it in the flower bed. I quess the critters thought they could play marbles too. Or maybe a squirrel thought he could eat one for a late night snack.
I never played marbles as a child, but I have a small collection of them as an adult. I keep them in 2 blown glass bottles. Years ago, when we had a cabinet shop, my husband made a few of those boards for the marble game where you “jump” marbles over one another to eventually end up (ideally) with just one on the board. I had the best time choosing which marbles to include with the boards. There’s not a whole lot of things prettier to look at than a jar full of marbles in a window, either
My grandparents were collectors of dolls, decoys and old tools to name a few. Growing up they often attended flea markets or antique shows, and as a treat, my sister and I got to go with them on occasion. Finding something that we could collect or keep our eye out for was probably the bright idea of my grandparents! Marbles definitely fit the bill. We had quite the collection and would mostly play with/against each other. My favorite part about them was enjoying all the different patterns and color ways. I love that your post brought up a sweet childhood memory, thank you! Now, to remember where those marbles went…
My daughter, age 12, loves to play marbles. She and her younger brother play all the time. My 88 year old grandmother just passed down her marbles to my daughter. She is amazed at the rough texture of them compared to the marbles of today. But they are very special to her and she won’t play with them for fear they will break. She plays the ones we buy for $1 at the dollar store.
I collected marbles and kept them in a Maxwell House coffee can. Being a girl, I never played marbles because only the boys played marbles at recess. I just loved the pretty colors, how they felt, and even how they sounded. I believe their is still a marble factory here in West Virginia and may be the only one left in the US. Prayers for Miss Cindy and you all.
I remember kids playing marbles mostly boys. I tried but was never any good at it. seems like a parent objected to it and they made them all stop playing.
God bless Tipper and her family, God bless Ms Cindy with healing and health in Jesus name, I have marbles I have collected over the years, somewhere in the family is an old clay marble, found in the nimblewill area of north Georgia, God bless you friends of Appalachia, have a great day, Happy Friday!