7 Bits About the Amazing Bobbsey Twins (1954)

When I was a kid, I was a voracious reader. Luckily, we lived near a library. My trips to the library often employed a wagon to ferry my borrowings home. Once, my mother walked by me in the living room as I turned a last page and said, “You didn’t read that whole book already, did you?” I told her all about the book in great detail, and she was amazed.

I especially loved The Bobbsey Twins, a set of 102 adventures penned by several authors under the Laura Lee Hope pseudonym from 1904 to 1992. When I spotted several volumes at a library sale this summer, I decided to bring one home, and it happened to be The Bobbsey Twins on a Bicycle Trip, published in 1954. I thought you might like to know seven amazing bits about the Bobbsey Twins from that era, before cell phones, computers, and the Internet.

1. There were actually two sets of twins in the Bobbsey family. Flossie and Freddie were six-years old, blonde, blue-eyed, and plump. Nan and Bert were twelve-years-old and had dark hair and eyes. In 1954, it must have been okay to call kids plump, and being plump was actually a mark of attractiveness. Apparently, the parents had some BB’s and bb’s going on, too, resulting two sets of twins who looked remarkably different.
2. The Bobbsey family was in the 1%. The Bobbsey’s were blessed with the services of an elderly “colored” couple, Dinah and Sam, that been with them for many years. Dinah did all the cooking for the family, including some tasty fried chicken, and Sam drove a truck for Mr. Bobbsey’s lumber business. If the family lived today, they’d never use the term “colored,” and they’d never remark that the couple had the “whitest teeth the children had ever seen.”
3. Women’s liberation was years away. When the family returned from vacation and Snowball the cat was missing, Mrs. Bobbsey said she’d say home while Mr. Bobbsey took the four kids out in the car to search. A few days later, Flossie washed her doll’s clothes while Freddie drove his fire truck around the yard. And the older twin, Bert, had a bike that had been purchased brand new a few years earlier, but Nan’s was second-hand and no longer fit for riding. Luckily, she found a new second-hand bike and was able to convince Mr. Bobbsey to buy it for her.
4. The twins were adventurous. Over the years, the twins found themselves at Mystery Mansion, At the Circus, and Solving the Horseshoe Riddle, among many other adventures and mysteries. What six and twelve-year-old kids can say that today? And what six-year-olds are brave enough to walk a mile from their house into the woods to find their lost cat? And how many twelve-year olds today would plan and execute a 50-mile bicycle camping trip the way they did in The Bobbsey Twins on a Bicycle Trip?
5. The twins were stronger and fitter than today’s kids. To find the lost cat, Snowball, the two sets of twins teamed up with some friends and a couple of college students for the 50-mile bike trip, which would take a couple of days and require the group to set up camp on farmlands along the way. Luckily, Mr. Bobbsey had visited all the farms owners along the route to get permission for the kids to camp on their properties. Of course, the trip was most certainly made more comfortable by the leather shorts Mrs. Bobbsey bought her four kids, which they wore for the newspaper picture. Unfortunately, the two friends and the college kids did not have their own leather shorts, and were not included in the picture.
6. Cell phones were not missed. Even though the group didn’t have iPhones, Bert had convinced Mr. Bobbsey to buy him a short-wave radio to take along on the trip, so they could call home every night. Plus, one of the friends had a new-fangled camera, which popped out a picture that developed before their eyes.
7. The twins found the cat—and more. Not only did the twins find Snowball, who’d had kittens in a random barn, they also found Charlie Mason’s stolen bugle, Mrs. Elliot’s six $500 bills, and Mr. Becker’s exploding fire-extinguisher invention. The other three lost items had helped to justify the 50-mile trip. They accomplished this through deductive reasoning, problem solving, conflict resolution, and even found time to participate in a parade in one of the faraway towns.

There you have it, seven bits about the 1954 Bobbsey Twins. As I read my Bobbsey Twin library-sale find, I was amazed at how different the world was in 1954 for women and children.

The children, at least, were much more free than those of today. These days, parents who allow their kids to walk home solo from a playground find themselves in court. The kids, while possibly plump, were probably much more fit than kids of today, who sit in front of screens playing in virtual worlds while sipping soda pop and crunching through a bag of chips.

Mrs. Bobbsey, who didn’t seem to have many adventures herself, had a pretty good gig going on, though. She, at least, had someone who cooked three meals for her family. I’m pretty sure Dinah did the dishes, the laundry, and housecleaning, too. So, don’t feel sorry for unenlightened Mrs. Bobbsey. To me, her world sounds like it would be a nice respite from multi-tasked, tech-infused, 21^st-century days, at least for a little while.

Ann Silverthorn writes about a wide variety of topics in numerous genres. She’s currently working on a biography of William E. Dimorier (1871-1951), a nearly forgotten poet and educator, who dedicated his life to the betterment of young people.

Twitter: @annsilverthorn   Instagram: ann_silverthorn