Nearly Lost Equine Images, Part One: Trigger, the Pinto Pony

One of the reasons I created this blog was to record the importance of model horses, and real horses, in the lives of children and adults during the twentieth century.  This is the first in a series of posts about real horse photos that turned up in some old albums from the 1920s through 1950s. Had the pictures not been rescued, the images of these horses might have been lost forever.

"Trigger, September 1952. Farm"

I try not to make assumptions when someone doesn't keep their old family photos. There could be any number of reasons. 

Maybe the photo albums were lost by accident in a move; maybe they were put in a storage pod and never removed by the family. Maybe there were bad feelings among family members; maybe the grandkids didn't value them. Or perhaps there were no surviving family members to cherish the old pictures.

Whatever the case, I think it's appropriate to remember the equine friends that appear in the pages of old photograph albums. These pictures shed light on the fact that horses, ponies, mules, and donkeys played an important part in family life, not only as work animals but also as beloved family friends.

This seems to be the case with the pictures of Trigger the pinto pony that my friend found at a very large yard sale a couple of weeks ago.  The yard sale contained donations from dozens of people who volunteer for a local cat rescue group. There was really no way to trace the origin of the pictures except for a few penciled notes on the backs of some of the photos, and connecting them to the family names mentioned in some old Baby Books in which the mom had made notes.

The crumbling black pages of the photo album contained dozens of pictures of a 1950s California family that traveled back to the dad's family farm, probably in South Dakota (or possibly Minnesota). 

"Farm. 1952."

We know that the families' last names included Johnson and Nelson, and that this particular pony's name was Trigger.

"September 1952. Farm"

One Baby Book notes that, in 1952, Lenny Johnson, Jr. (age 4) and his parents left Southern California and "went on vacation to Bryce - Zion - Yellowstone - Teton - Black Hills and on to the Farm. Lenny road (sic) tractor and pony. Road pony bareback all by himself."

Handwritten notes on the backs of the photos say that the pony's name was Trigger.  

"Rodney on Trigger, 1951."

"Karin on Trigger, Kirstin on Dolly, 1951."

"Farm. September 1952."

Perhaps one of the reasons that Lenny's mom, Betty Jean, made note of Trigger and Dolly was that she and Lenny's dad also had horses when they were children, and saved their pictures.  We'll look at them in subsequent blog posts.

We can't deduce much more about Trigger at this point, except to say that it looks like his children loved him. And perhaps, in the long run, that's the most important thing to remember.

Arizona Live, 1991

I'm happy to report there has been a great deal of discussion in model horse groups on social media of "live" model horse shows during the 1970s through 1990s. I thought it would be useful for this blog to share a few more examples of live shows from that era.

Today's topic: Arizona Live.  Here's the Arizona Republic's May 4, 1991 interview with artist and show holder Kathleen Moody.

Remembering the 1979 Model Horse Congress

Summer has always been a good time for a model horse event.  As collectors look forward to live shows and BreyerFest, I thought it might be fun to look back at an early large model horse show, the eighth annual Model Horse Congress in 1979.  It was organized by the young woman who came to be acknowledged as the godmother of the model horse hobby, Marney J. Walerius. 

Fortunately for us, the August 5, 1979 edition of the Chicago Tribune published a long article on the Congress, mostly an interview with Marney.  The reporter, Mary Daniels, did a decent job (for a non-collector) of explaining what was going on. (You'll see an interesting misspelling of "Walerius" in one of the captions.)

I'll show you the whole article first; then you can scroll down to read it in smaller sections and see the photos of Marney's model horses.  They show a draft horse by Francis Eustis, a Beswick Quarter Horse, an original finish Hagen-Renaker "Maverick" Quarter Horse," and a test run dapple gray Breyer Family Arabian Stallion.  

The article mentions Peter Stone, when he worked for Breyer, and other hobby resources of the time, including the Model Horse Showers' Journal published by Linda Walter and Breyer's Just About Horses.

Here's the full article.  Scroll down to read it in sections!

Here's a photo of Marney with her niece, Susan Randall,
admiring a Francis W. Eustis Percheron.

(W-a-l-e-r-i-u-s....)

Did you ever attend a Model Horse Congress?  If so I'd love to hear your memories!  

___

Author Nancy Kelly has a great blog post on Marney Walerius, Ellen Hitchins, Simone Smiljanic, and the Model Horse Congress:  

https://www.ketain.com/EarlyModelHorsePioneers.html?fbclid=IwAR29hXEXbuBKxSgT6xJCJ8i6RJV1UC5XyP3XvvdG5I-uJ4e1KUMcd91mMW8

Nancy has written several books relating to the model horse hobby. Her latest is here:

https://www.fairportpress.com/?fbclid=IwAR3dx2IpwsAWnTCn1cLn3fOjUA7lhabydoI9OSMmHpr2n_TqXSwfgXgKrog

Marney passed away in 1992, at age 43. Here's a tribute to her, from another model horse history blog:  http://modelhorsehistory.com/images/THHN/thhn22_pg14.pdf

The Breyer History Diva's blog looks back at the Breyer test run dapple grays, including Marney's In-A-Tiff:

https://breyerhistorydiva.blogspot.com/2010/02/brief-history-of-dapple-grays-part-1.html?fbclid=IwAR32AiMHp9iLjAUxDNTXV0gx8bSLzYQ7pw1qQ0EmZMnpR7JrQaDlgx9P_3o

https://breyerhistorydiva.blogspot.com/2010/02/brief-history-of-dapple-grays-part-2.html?fbclid=IwAR0QX_REYe9D1NdSoA4go9YKtIE9R0iyezm7txwEzVzYaMXog5tbtcpZHSk

Ahead of Her Time: Equine Artist Virginia Orison

I've written before about the great importance of horse books and magazines in the life of young model horse collectors in the 1950s, '60s and '70s. One of the most important sources of horse-related information -- and temptation -- was Western Horseman magazine.

One of the best things about going to the pharmacy to leaf through the latest issue of Western Horseman every month, was the display advertising with photos of the items for sale: not just tack and western wear, but also horse-themed books and notecards and jewelry and art prints and figurines. It was enough to melt the mind of a horsey kid who only got between 10 and 25 cents a week allowance.

And in so many issues of Western Horseman were horse figurines that were way outside my five-and-dime-store budget: original works of art by Virginia Orison (1912-1970) of Blackfoot, Idaho.

If you saw them at an antique store or estate sale and didn't know what they were, you might pass the Orison horses by, because they lack the extreme detail we're used to seeing in model horse figurines these days.  But they are tiny pieces of Midcentury equine history indeed.

Occasionally Orison's horse figurines turn up inside the model horse hobby.  My Facebook friend Nicci Noel has found two of the Quarter Horses.  One is the Quarter Horse mold in palomino, with a western saddle.

Note the detail on the base.

The saddle is removable. 

And the horse is signed on the underside of his belly.

Nicci's second Virginia Orison Quarter Horse has a hair mane and tail, and is mounted on a lamp. 

Despite his condition issues, this Quarter Horse still has a great deal of character.

Recently I started searching for information on Virginia Orison and her equine art.  Orison and her husband Jim were well-known in the Idaho horse community.  For a time, she was the head of the Intermountain Arabian Horse Association.  The Orisons' names appear regularly in Idaho horse show results during the 1950s and 1960s. This May 18, 1952 article in the Idaho State Journal talks about their chestnut Arabian stallion, Tarih AHR 5984 (Olnatar x Rozala).

(Yes, the newspaper spelled the horse's name wrong in the caption.)

Sidebar: Arabian horse history fans will be interested to know that Tarih was descended from some of the most famous horses of their day, including those owned by the Crabbet Arabian Stud, the Kellogg Ranch, and the Maynesboro Stud.  The Orisons also gained local fame with a son and daughter of Tarih, Safarih and Bintarih.

Even in the mid-1940s, Virginia Orison's fame as a designer of horse figurines was beginning to spread.  This April 19, 1946 article in the Idaho Falls, Idaho Post-Register includes a photo of her Arabian horse in western tack that won a prize at the state fair in 1945.

This article describes the horse figurines as being made of clay. It also shows us that Virginia Orison was something of a Renaissance Woman.  

Virginia Orison was a "rodeo queen, calf roper, cowgirl, farmer-rancher's wife, musician, and civic worker" in addition to being an artist.

Orison's earliest model horse designs 
included Arabians and Thoroughbreds. 

Orison also designed Quarter Horses and Palominos in the 1940s. This article says her first model was of a Palomino, and that the figurines averaged 9 inches tall.

Virginia Orison started riding horses
when she was 3 years old.

The same story appeared in the June 2, 1946 issue of the Salt Lake City Tribune. It included photos of Orison, an Arabian without tack, and a Thoroughbred with English tack.

On September 26, 1949, the Post-Register reported that a local draft horse owner had commissioned Orison to design scale models of his Shire horses.  The article says Orison had moved her 3D equine art into a factory made from a converted chicken coop in the country.

By 1951, Orison was taking out ads for the most popular breeds of her equine art in Western Horseman magazine.  I've also seen her ads in old copies of Horse Lover's magazine. 

Over the years, readers saw a number of her designs. The horses were offered with or without tack, customized to particular colors and markings as the buyer desired. The earliest ads show a base price of $5.00 (without tack) to $10.00 (with tack), which underscores the fact that these were not toys -- they were decorative objects to enhance the horse lover's environment.  As the years went on, the prices increased.

This Appaloosa could be mounted on a trophy base 
with a "sun ray plate and engraving"
or on a "lamp with western shade."

The Arabian also came "with or without real mane and tail."

The American Saddlebred could be customized
as a 5-gaited or 3-gaited horse.

Here's one of Orison's Arabians in western tack, mounted on the base of a lamp.

This ad for Orison's Morgan horse design shows that she was taking orders via a location in California, where she lived for three years before returning to Idaho.

An article in the April 3, 1966 Idaho State Journal describes Orison's horses as being made from "clay and wood composition" based on her original clay models.  The reporter described the variety of Orison's work, including cattle, and noted that by this time, the mid-1960s, her work had been purchased by collectors all over the world.

"A Brahma bull, a cow-girl on a small Arabian horse, an Arabian with rider dressed in authentic Arabian costume, an Arabian with rider dressed in western costume, and a model of 'Black Jack," the horse in President Kennedy's funeral procession."

"Arabians, Quarter Horse, American Saddlebred, Appaloosa, Morgan, Tennessee Walker, show Shetland pony, Pinto, Palomino, thoroughbred, Hackney, Standardbred, Mule, Burro, Donkey, Clydesdale, Percheron, Suffolk, Shire, Belgian and others...calf roper and two, four, six and eight-horse hitches."

Here's an ad for the calf roper from an old horse magazine.

Virginia Orison died on November 1970, at the age of 58.  Her obituary appeared in the Idaho State Journal on the 22nd.

Why isn't Virginia Orison's name better known in the world of model horse collecting? It's possible that few people remember her simply because the older people in the hobby today were still children during her heyday and could not afford her work. Then, too, Orison's horse figurines were not toys; rather, they were decorative objects, lamps, and trophy tops. Prolific as she was as an individual, Orison was creating each piece by hand, rather than having them mass-produced.

Another major factor appears to be that the figurines made of "clay and wood composition" were pretty fragile under their three coats of lacquer, and many have started to disintegrate over the decades.  Still, you see them from time to time on eBay and in model horse groups on Facebook. 


Virginia Orison's work foreshadowed the model horse hobbyists' fascination with horse breeds, conformation, and tack. Starting in the 1940s alongside Gladys Brown Edwards metal horses, and overlapping the 1960s-70s heydays of Breyer, Hartland, Hagen-Renaker, or the Marx "Best of the West" series, Virginia Orison was helping to pave the way for more realistic model horse figurines in the home.

Here's a link to several more of them via the Model Horse Gallery.

http://www.modelhorsegallery.info/O/Orison/VOhome.html