For purposes of putting together a number of early 1900s games there is a book you would find very interesting. Some years ago when I came across it in my local library I thought I had found a bird nest on the ground. It is Dorothy's World, Childhood in Sabine Bottom, 1902 - 1910 by Dorothy Howard. Published by Prentice-Hall. The book is long out of print but probably can be borrowed through inter-library loan, that practice that is a good friend to genealogists. Sabine Bottom is a community in Rains County which is separated from Van Zandt County by the Sabine River. Dorothy's version of "Red Rover" is somewhat different from the one I played in Centerview Community in Sabine County. The game you are wanting about throwing the ball over a house (In our case it was a two room school building) is probably called "Ante Over" in most places. We called it "Hellover" which I assume was a shortened version of "Hail over" or perhaps "Hello, over on the other side." There'll be a lot of versions to all the games I expect, depending on the rules and methods the big kids taught to the younger. One of the games we little girls played was to a song we sang, "London bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down, London bridge etc." My grown up self thought it had originated in England, I lived for more than seven years of my adult life in England. I never encountered a person there who'd ever heard of that game. Charlene Walker Brazell

Some of the early childhood games have interesting histories. For example, the game "Ring-Around-The-Rosie" has its roots in the plague. It describes some of the symptoms (the "ring" was a distinctive pink ring-shaped rash, one of the first signs of the plague), and "ashes, ashes, we all fall down" refers to the deadly end of the disease. An innocent childhood game with an ominous history! Meg Gentry Bookout in CA CWBrazell@aol.com wrote: > For purposes of putting together a number of early 1900s games there is a > book you would find very interesting. Some years ago when I came across it > in my local library I thought I had found a bird nest on the ground. > It is Dorothy's World, Childhood in Sabine Bottom, 1902 - 1910 by Dorothy > Howard. Published by Prentice-Hall. > The book is long out of print but probably can be borrowed through > inter-library loan, that practice that is a good friend to genealogists. > Sabine Bottom is a community in Rains County which is separated from Van > Zandt County by the Sabine River. > Dorothy's version of "Red Rover" is somewhat different from the one I > played in Centerview Community in Sabine County. > The game you are wanting about throwing the ball over a house (In our > case it was a two room school building) is probably called "Ante Over" in > most places. We called it "Hellover" which I assume was a shortened version > of "Hail over" or perhaps "Hello, over on the other side." > There'll be a lot of versions to all the games I expect, depending on the > rules and methods the big kids taught to the younger. One of the games we > little girls played was to a song we sang, "London bridge is falling down, > falling down, falling down, London bridge etc." > My grown up self thought it had originated in England, I lived for more > than seven years of my adult life in England. I never encountered a person > there who'd ever heard of that game. > Charlene Walker Brazell > > >