This was being discarded at the end of someone's laneway, the remains of yard sale merchandise that didn't sell. The folks there told me it came from one of their father's sheds that they had cleaned out.
It didn't quite look like this, as both one end and one side were broken in half, but from the same pile I also picked up some old wooden Australian fruit crates of the same vintage. I'm sure that something like this was used to make the cradle originally. So, I used them to fix it up to look like it probably did originally.
I thought it perfectly reflected an age, probably during the depression, when there was no extra money to buy frills, and when a father applied his limited carpentry tools to build this in the barn so his daughter could have a cradle for her doll. I'm sure that she was thrilled. It stands in stark contrast to the overproduction and over-consumerism of today. I have since donated it to the Frontenac County Schools Museum, whose staff were delighted to accept it, and where it can serve as a reminder to others that we didn't always enjoy such material abundance.
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