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Eight-year-old is serious antique collector
MOUNT VERNON, Ill. (AP) -- While many 8-year-old boys enjoy scooters, in-line skates and Spider-Man action figures, Hunter McElroy enjoys antiques.
``I wish I lived in the past because I like antiques so much,'' Hunter said recently, with a grin.
His hobby began four years ago. Since then, the Mount Verson boy has accumulated a wide variety of antiques. To enter his bedroom is to travel back in time because of his eclectic collection, which includes a miner's lantern, Mason jars, old flour sifters, a shoebutton hook, old radios, old bug sprayers, a musical squeeze box and a kettle on a tripod.
``To make Hunter happy, all you have to do is take him to an antique shop,'' explained his mother, Kristine McElroy. ``We've visited almost all the local ones, as well as those in New Harmony, Ind., and Silver Dollar City in Branson, Mo.
Interestingly, Hunter not only collects antiques but also wants to learn how to use them.
``I like to use everything I get,'' he said.
His old fountain pens are filled with ink. His antique Victrola plays 78s. His old typewriter works, and his two push lawnmowers mow grass.
Last year, all Hunter wanted for his birthday was an antique spinning wheel. After he received it, he learned how to spin wool from a craftsman at the Jefferson County Historical Village.
``I'd like Mom and Dad to buy some sheep and raise them, so that when they're sheared, I could spin my own wool, and Mom could make me some clothes,'' Hunter said.
He said he also wants a large windmill in the yard to pump water out of the ground and some roosters, so they could wake him up in the morning, like in the old days.
His father, Chris McElroy, commented with amusement, though, that it would be difficult to put a windmill, sheep and roosters on their home's third-of-an-acre lot.
Because Hunter likes old barns -- especially the round barn on his cousin's farm in Freeport and the one on the farm his grandmother, Anita McElroy, once had in Farmington -- he said he hopes to become a farmer.
He also said that some day he hopes to live in a Victorian farmhouse that has fretwork, skeleton key locks and old doorknobs -- but not glass doorknobs because he is afraid they would break if they fell off.
When his mother recently purchased a new washer, Hunter told her he wanted to replace it with an old wringer washing machine. When asked why, he replied that his other grandmother, Mary Bodine of Mount Vernon, told him she had one years ago, and that it washed clothes the best.
Hunter's great-grandfather, Isaac Bayley, formerly of Mount Vernon, was at one time a musician in a dance orchestra and still enjoys listening to songs from the big bands. Whenever Hunter visits, Bayley plays some of them on the piano, and last year he gave Hunter a CD of music from that era.
``My favorite song on the CD is 'Little Brown Jug' by Glenn Miller,'' Hunter said. ``And I really like it when Grandpa Bayley plays it on the piano.''
Among the antiques Hunter plans to acquire are a butter churn, a claw-footed bathtub, a treadle sewing machine, an outhouse and a Model T Ford with a hand-crank starter.
``I'll probably get the Model T when I'm 16, but I'd sure take it now,'' he said enthusiastically.
To bad more of today's kids don't think this way.
