Article courtesy of author Parker Copley and The Columbia Basin Farmer
December 2002

There is a story told about the toys that are given to children at Christmas time. At night, when all the hose has gone to sleep, the toys come to life and sing, dance and play games until dawn when they return to their places on the shelf. Could the same be true of Cookie Jars? The Jensens, Kenneth and Barbara, are not saying.

They have enough cookie jars among other objects of interest to them that one might say puts them in the category of collectors. They have been collecting clocks and pieces of farm equipment for many years, when in 1989 they started looking at stoneware. This involved more than just any kind of crock, pickle, beer, sour dough jar or water jar. The crock had to be made by an established pottery, in a specific geological area and made with clay from the clay pit on site.

Their prize crocks are from Red Wing, Minnesota and from the pottery of the same name. The pottery fired up its kilns in the late 1880's, changing names and owners several times, but was always known as Red Wing.

The clay from the pit rendered a white color to the crockery, which makes a good background for the blue or red script, and emblems brushed with clay slip mixed with minerals like cobalt or manganese. The crocks produced by Red Wing bear symbols of a bird wing or a leaf. There was a time when crocks bearing advertising could be ordered such as the one the Jensens have collected, EVERYTHING TO EAT AND WEAR - J. KASPER LIND WA.

The Red Wing Stoneware company was established in 1878. It produced crocks, jars, butter churns and so on, until the 1930's when these products were phased out in favor of making art pottery (cookie jars for one) and dinnerware. So, the stoneware pieces and the art pottery too became scarce and therefore collectibles as the company finally closed up shop in 1964.

Ken and Barb have examples of all those items so far mentioned, crocks of all sizes, jars, churns and even porcelain kitchen utensils like a rolling pin, some from Denmark. But, they have taken a fancy to the art pottery vein of cookie jars. This interest began in 1990 when they fell for a cookie jar resembling an elephant. They have also acquired a series of watercolor paintings depicting onions, just onions: Red ones, yellow ones, white onions, possibly a tribute to the paying crop of onions they grow annually. Ken and Barb are life long residents of the Basin with grandchildren in high school. Barbara's father was a construction man who helped build the dams on the upper Columbia River. Ken's family came from Denmark. The land where Hans Christen Andersen wrote the story about the Brave Tin Soldier that came alive at night with the other toys and fell in love with the Little Paper Ballerina.

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