The construction of the toys included an improbable mix of the rugged and the breakable with some moving parts and many delicate features.  Solid wood blocks were freely juxtaposed to fragile strips, and brittle plexiglass was held roughly in place by heavy gauge wire.  The tools used for construction were only a vice, a coping saw, a (manual) hand drill, a brace and bit, a paring knife from the kitchen, a hammer, and pliers.  Files and sandpaper saw very little action.  Glue and nails were involved, but mercifully very little tape.  One trick which was used to produce curved surfaces was to soak peach crate wood in water until it was pliable and then bend it to simulate curved (metal) surfaces, as was done for the cab of the steam shovel model.

Painting was done with a broad brush and genuine lead-based paint, often at the last minute on Christmas Eve, and the original paint held its color for more than half a century.

Perhaps the most interesting of the toys are the two fire engines, modeled on the two trucks which stood side by side in the fire garage of Ames City Hall during the 1940s.  Each was made for a different Christmas, the white truck being the earlier of the two, probably made in 1944, and the red truck was probably the last of all the wooden toys made in 1946.

The white truck with its extendable ladder was of a prewar style to represent the 1924 American LaFrance bought new by Ames and the red truck with its removable ladders and rope hose was of more modern design to represent the 1940 prototype acquisition.

Both were modeled with enough moving parts to hold a child’s interest, especially since the son had visited the Ames firehouse more than once with his father to see the real things close up.  Someone, however, was not paying close attention, for it was the older prototype (now standing as a curiosity in Brookside Park) that was red and the newer that was white.  Many other details mismatch between models and prototypes, but then the models were only impressions, after all.

The collection of 1:30 scale toys is quite complete except for a tractor/trailer rig that did not survive.  Larger scale toys were also made, including a rocking horse and model of the Ames Post Office.  A treasured ironing board made for his only daughter, Janet, in 1950, is the only surviving example of the large toys.

This large scale (21.5”h) toy ironing board was made in 1950 for the McNeil’s daughter, Janet.  It was always kept handy, and once was hidden away in the family car at the start of a vacation trip to Washington state.  Of special note is the walnut top board made from a tree on the farm of Gilbert H. Getty, Janet’s grandfather.  The farm was called Beaverside from the creek that flowed nearby, and was located one mile south of Beaver in Boone County.

These wooden toys provide lasting evidence of fatherly love expressed not merely in trivial and volatile sporting events as would become the fashion half a century later but rather in a substantial way through the shared workshop.  However simple and crude these items of folk art may appear, they are significant as examples of how one generation may build for another without presumption, yet in so doing leave an historical record and a legacy for posterity.

Meanwhile, the son never doubted throughout an otherwise uncertain wartime period that there would be something for him under the Christmas tree.  As it turns out, the son later spent many hours in the workshop himself, making buildings and layouts to complement the manufactured toy trains which father and son shared in postwar years.  Still later, as a teenager the son made models of antique firearms and built a collection which grew to represent a noteworthy sampling of the history of handguns (see that collection).  As just demonstrated, generations can carry on a tradition of caring through crafting and reinvigorating an American tradition of folk art.

Adapted from text written by Donald Homer McNeil