Week 34, Playtime: Davy Crockett Memories

"Playtime" is the topic for Week 34 of 2025's 52 Ancestors in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge.

Davy Crockett hit movie theaters on May 25, 1955, and it was an instant success, just as Disney knew it would be.  In fact, it was a cash-cow. The producers used spliced together and edited footage from the first three episodes of their wildly popular Davy Crockett television mini-series, so it was inexpensive to produce.  Children were drawn to the familiar folk-hero they loved and watching it on the big screen in Technicolor instead of their tiny black and white TVs at home was a treat!  The real profit for Disney came from merchandising.  From key chains to polo shirts, Davy Crockett’s face or movie logo was adhered to everything.  Naturally, the most coveted item was the iconic coonskin cap, which retailed for $1.98.  Lucky children could roleplay in style with the whole frontier outfit, which included a buckskin colored tunic and breeches trimmed with authentic fringe for $4.49.  This didn’t include the belt or the gun, which were sold separately. 

Ron and Linda, May 1955

Uncle Ron was five and wanted to be Davy Crockett.  My mom was three and wanted to do everything her big brother did.  Grampy earned about $30/week and Nana, pregnant with her fourth child, did her best to make the family’s grocery and clothing budget stretch.  They simply couldn’t afford official Davy Crockett costumes for two children.  Luckily for Ronnie and Linda, they had a thrifty and creative mother!  Nana bought a couple of cheap jackets at Goodwill, then she raided the scrap leather barrel down at the Dana Warp Mill.  After a couple of quick passes with her sewing machine followed by a bunch of tedious snipping with scissors, her children had fringed Davy Crockett jackets.  Ronnie and Linda didn’t know or care that they weren’t made by Disney.  They romped through the backyard singing, “Davyyyyyy!  Davy Crockett!  King of the wild frontier!” at the top of their lungs while shooting invisible critters and bad guys.

Despite the fact that she absolutely loves this picture and remembers her mother telling the story of how she made the jackets, this isn’t her favorite Davy Crockett memory.  She was too young to actually remember wearing this jacket or trailing after her brother in her coonskin cap.  Her favorite Davy Crockett memory occurred 60 years later with my son, Nathan.

When my kids were small, they spent one week each summer in Maine with my family.  They were treated to fun day trips and Mom and Aunt Judy spoiled them rotten.  On the way home one year, they stopped at Cabella’s to see “animal mountain,” a tall display in the store full of taxidermy animals.  While there, Nate fell in love with a coonskin cap, so of course his Grammie bought it for him.  When she told him she had a Davy Crockett hat like that when she was a little girl, that led Nate to ask the obvious question: “Who’s Davy Crockett?”

As they started out on the two-hour ride home, she told the kids all about Davy Crockett’s adventures, and how he even wrestled a bear!  A bear?  Nate didn’t believe it!  The steady rhythm of the car lulled him to sleep before they were barely out of the parking lot.  He woke up 40 minutes later just as they were crossing the bridge between Maine and New Hampshire and immediately continued the conversation right where he left off – as though he hadn’t been soundly asleep for nearly an hour.  “Grammy?” she heard his incredulous voice from the backseat, “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!”