It’s a porker love affair. You have hung on to silly little plywood pigs for more than 70 years. Some of you still use them as cutting boards, even though they’ve chipped with time.
You’ve been asked to throw them away, and you refuse.
We opened a pig’s Pandora’s box Friday when we wrote about Dick Robinson’s plywood pig. His grandfather owned Robinson Manufacturing in Everett and in the 1930s, the plant handed out free pigs off the back of a truck at annual Fourth of July parades in town.
Robinson casually wondered whether anybody still had a pig.
I spent all day Friday and Monday morning talking to happy pig owners.
Margaret Hathaway of Everett treasures her two pigs.
“My son in Montana said, ‘When are you going to get rid of the pigs?’ ” Hathaway said. “I ain’t.”
Hathaway’s husband, Erwin, worked at Robinson. She uses her pigs as pads for hot kettles, she said.
“They are a little bit stained from being washed off and everything,” Hathaway said. “I was thinking one day I’d paint them.”
Judy Webb painted her pig blue and hung it with red ribbon in her country-style family room. She found it under the sink in an old north Everett home and held on to the unique porker when she moved to Lake Stevens, she said.
Arnie Bock of Everett said his mother used the pig. His parents lived in Everett during World War II, and Bock still uses the cutting board.
For Don McLees of Everett, who represents the third generation of his family to live in the same house, antiques are the norm, including one of the pigs. When he saw the Friday article, he searched in a mostly inaccessible cupboard behind the stove, and there it was. His is stamped “Robinson Manufacturing.”
One pig was rescued.
Loris Ludington of Everett said her friend’s parents died, and when the house was being cleaned out, she saw the pig tossed on a burn pile.
“I asked it I could have it,” she said. “It fits just perfect under the crock pot.”
When Roger Hansen lived on Baker Street in Everett, the pig was kept around the house, he said, then moved to his Lake Stevens basement. Nola Harrison of Snohomish said her mother used the pig as a cutting board.
Janice Westland of Everett said her pig is getting a bit worn.
“It’s all marked up,” she said. “I got it in a thrift store years ago.”
Mary Jamieson, 82, even remembers when the pigs were tossed off trucks at the parade.
“There was a big scramble,” Jamieson said. “I was never able to scramble fast enough.”
She found her porker at a garage sale several years ago.
“I use it and treasure it,” Jamieson said. “A couple of times my children have said, ‘What are you hanging on to that for?’ and I say ‘Leave it alone, that’s mine.’ “
One pig is on display behind the stovetop of Shirley Dollarhide of Everett.
“I think he’s adorable,” Dollarhide said. “He’s been passed down by our family.”
Cousins Charlene and Juanita Leese both own pigs. James Lofling, whose father, Vernon, worked at Robinson for 34 years, owns four pigs. Marlene Ringen of Everett said she is sentimental about her pig. It’s painted white and getting a little thin in the middle.
The column prompted Lin Finlayson of Everett to think about fetching her pig from the attic.
“My parents were in Everett for a couple of years in the late 1930s and then finally settled here in 1941,” Finlayson said. “I’m sure they would have attended at least one July Fourth parade then, and my father, having gone through the Depression, would have noticed a good bargain (freebie) when he saw it.”
When her parents died and the house was sold, she kept the pig.
Visitors in Lynnwood on Friday, from near Palm Springs, Calif., saw the column and called to say they own two pigs. Partners Will Pendell and Vernon Cunningham got the pigs from Alice Lundeen, whose family started Lundeen Park in Lake Stevens, Pendell said.
One pig is used to set hot cookies out to cool at the Mill Creek home of Marilyn Schilaty Klose. Her parents, Walt and Dorothy Schilaty, met when he worked for Robinson Manufacturing and she was a nurse who checked the health of prostitutes along the Everett waterfront, Marilyn Klose said.
Ardys Santose of Marysville said she probably got her well-used pig from her mother-in-law.
“I just like it,” Santose said. “I’ve got to keep that little pig.”
Columnist Kristi O’Harran: 425-339-3451 or oharran@heraldnet.com.
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