Collections that spur memories
Collectors are an odd lot. From the quirky — airsickness bags (unused, we assume) — to the valuable — antique Chinese porcelain — there’s no telling what can capture our passion.
It’s easier to be a collector these days (which some say takes the fun out of it) because with only a keystroke and a credit card our computers allow us to buy whatever our hearts desire and our pocketbooks allow.
But then there are the collectors whose treasured objects reflect a lifetime’s interest that have brought them both joy in their acquisition and contentment in the memories they bring.
A life of theater memories
Take Manny Velder. The 86-year-old retired Towson University educator has, he estimated, “a couple of thousand” theatrical Playbills, dating back to the first production he ever saw, The Cherry Orchard, starring the renowned actress Eva Le Gallienne at Baltimore’s legendary Ford’s Theatre. Velder was just 12 or 13 at the time, and he recalled, “I didn’t understand a word of it, but I was enchanted.”
Velder’s not sure what inspired him to start saving Playbills, but from that moment on, until just a few years ago, every time he went to a play, the Playbill came home with him.
Today the hallway in his Charles Village condominium is lined with a selection of the framed magazines, and the remainder can be found in five filing cabinet drawers. Velder finally stopped collecting because “I just ran out of space.”
The collection reflects a lifetime of avid theater-going, seeing performances in Baltimore, Washington, New York, London and more. Velder remembers traveling to London every year, seeing as many as 40 plays in one visit.
Among the highlights of both his Playbill collection and his memories are performances by actresses Julie Harris, Katherine Hepburn and Shirley Booth.
He has been fortunate to see original Broadway productions for many famous shows, including The Glass Menagerie and (his favorite musical) West Side Story, along with their many revivals.
“I was only 17 when I saw Glass Menagerie, with Laurette Taylor, for the first time,” Velder recalled, “but I’ve seen it eight to 10 times since then.” Also included among his favorite plays are Death of a Salesman and A Streetcar Named Desire.
And while he didn’t attend many opening nights of Broadway productions, “by accident” Velder was on hand for the memorable opening of The King and I on March 29, 1951, starring Yul Brynner. (Brynner went on to star in the 1956 film and many subsequent revivals, and became indelibly linked to that role.)
Though Velder has stopped adding to his Playbill collection, he continues to attend the theater as often as he can, with subscriptions to Everyman Theatre and Center Stage in Baltimore, and Arena Stage and the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington.
Velder doubts that his collection is worth much monetarily (though a quick look on the Internet showed Playbills selling for $5 on up…multiply by several thousand and, well, you do the math). But money was never the point.
“The theater has always been an escape,” he said. “It takes me to another world and another atmosphere,” Velder said.
Hello dolly
For 96-year-old Margie Warres, whose residence in the North Oaks Retirement Community in Pikesville is a tableau of the worldwide travels she and her late husband took, her collection of dolls has a special place in her heart.
“Everywhere we went, I bought a doll,” said Warres, the former executive director of the Central Scholarship Bureau. The dolls weren’t particularly expensive, Warres said, but they all reflect the country from which they came.
Still taking pride of place among the collection is a doll that Warres didn’t purchase on her own, but received as a child from friends of her parents when she was ill. That Italian bisque doll was later joined by several hundred more dolls (many of which she’s given to other family members now).
Warres and her husband Len, a radiologist, started their travels together on their honeymoon — a cruise to Nassau, Bermuda and Havana.
“I think my husband was a little nervous when I started shopping [for dolls] on our very first trip,” Warres laughed. He obviously learned to live with it though, because they remained married for 72 years until his death in 2011, at the age of 99.
“He was a good travel buddy,” said Warres wistfully.
The dolls still at home with Warres now live in a glass-fronted cabinet in her living room, except for several that are on display in the lobby of North Oaks, the retirement community where she lives. Every doll is in a native costume, and they span the globe, from Afghanistan to Iceland, Nepal, Turkey, Greece, Laos, to name just a few.
“We went to so many countries I can’t even count them,” said Warres, which means she doesn’t really know how many dolls she collected, either.
The dolls are only part of Warres’s many collections, which include paintings by Maryland artists, Panamanian textiles, Japanese woodcarvings and more.
Though Warres doesn’t travel anymore, her collections are a reminder of the many happy times she and her husband shared over more than seven decades..
“We had such lovely experiences getting to know people all over the world,” she said.
Unusual farming mementos
Among Emma Schramm’s numerous collections — postcards, hand-painted china, Christmas balls and nativity scenes — is one with a very personal meaning.
Her 750-piece collection of pickers’ checks began with remnants from the days her grandfather owned a farm in Anne Arundel County from 1910-1940.
According to the University of Maryland Archives, pickers’ checks are associated with late 19th and early 20th century life in Anne Arundel County and in Baltimore.
These tokens, which may have been used as early as the 1880s and remained in use until the 1930s, were used by farmers or landowners to pay seasonal laborers (or “pickers”), most of whom were of Polish or other Eastern European descent and did not speak English.
Many of the pickers lived in Baltimore and were recruited and supervised by a “rowboss,” who also acted as an interpreter. Most of the pickers were women, children, or older people who did not have other jobs in the city.
The tokens they received were exchanged for cash during the picking season or exchanged for goods at nearby stores. The use of pickers’ checks was discontinued before World War II.
Schramm, now 85 and a retired teacher and farmer who lives at Charlestown, first became interested in the pickers’ checks when she was approached by the Anne Arundel County Historical Society to see whether any still remained from her grandfather’s days as a farm owner.
Schramm found a handful and displayed them in the sales office of the family’s turkey farm. Soon people were sending her their family’s pickers’ checks and asking her to display them as well. One thing led to another, which eventually led to the 750 token collection, now carefully organized in binders.
“They used to be mounted on boards, but when I moved to Charlestown I had to start saving space,” said Schramm, noting that in her former home, the entire bottom floor was given over to her various collections.
Her collecting ways have subsided somewhat, Schramm said, though a cousin who lives just down the hall from her at Charlestown and is handy with a computer keeps Schramm busy acquiring new nativity scenes (from 74 countries and counting!).
For Schramm, collecting has been both a hobby and an escape. “When you run a farm,” she explained, “you never take a vacation. Collecting has been a good way to stay interested in things. When you get older, you need to have an interest.”