Jolly Jumper

Love a good surf and turf? I know I did, until I found out the Lobster had to be boiled alive. That took all the enjoyment out of eating Lobster for me.

Or Stinging Nettle. A very prickly experience to be sure if you happen to brush against one of these darlings. Once you’ve felt that burning, stinging feeling, you become very wary of the plant. It can’t be touched with bare hands without you feeling it’s bite, yet somehow, someone thought it would be a good idea to make tea out of it.

And those are just the food items that I’ve thought on from time to time! There are so many inventions that make you wonder, how, why, and, who?

I suppose there isn’t a person in the world who hasn’t wondered about the origins of something they come across during their lifetime.

I have thought many times about the thought processes that must have gone into the development of one thing or another. We’re constantly inundated with the newest version of any product that is already in production. Imagine being the first to do something or the person who took something that existed to a next level? That spark of ingenuity that would take something in your life to a whole new level or change the way we communicate, live, work or play.

Some things just make me wonder why, but most often, I wonder who and what were they thinking while they were planning.

Hasn’t everyone had a thought at one time or another of an idea that would be beneficial? But often, my curiosity comes in the form of the inventions of others.

One that is still amazing to me, so simple yet so practical and functional, is a Jolly Jumper.

The first time I saw one, I was a child, and my sister was a baby. She would be strapped into one and be entertained, or rather entertain herself for 10 or 15 minutes at a time. I thought it was amazing. Later as an adult I could see the entertainment value for both the infant and the parent, but where did the idea come from in the first place? Someone had to think this up. Who was it?

A little research and I found there were more than one version of what we now know as the ‘Jolly Jumper’. The latest and the one I remember from my youth, as was used for my sister, was created by Susan Olivia Poole.

Olivia, the name she was known by, was Indigenous, born in North Dakota in 1888, and raised on an Ojibwe Reservation in Minnesota. She attended school in Manitoba and studied piano. Later, after she married and while living in Ontario, her first child was born. At that , time, I can imagine that she was a young mother, living somewhere without the support of family around her, given the distance from where she started out thousands of miles away and in a different country. And so, after the birth of her first child, she remembered something she had seen years before, as a child, on the White Eagle Reservation where she grew up and which served as the seed for her idea.

When the women on White Eagle Reservation had babies, they used cradleboards that they strapped their infants to so they could carry them while they worked or suspend them with leather straps to a tree branch or a tripod, converting the cradleboard into a swing to soothe the infant.

Although she didn’t have a cradleboard, Olivia’s ingenuity kicked in and an idea began percolating. She created an adaptation that wouldn’t require a cradleboard. She created something that looked like a large diaper that extended up the infant’s torso, with straps to the front and rear of infant on each side. These straps were connected to an axe handle, used as a stabilizer, then these straps were brought together and suspended by a tether to a tripod or a doorcase. Its length could be adjusted so that the infant’s feet were just touching the floor, giving them an opportunity to bounce and move by kicking their feet. The infant could then bounce about and feel a certain amount of freedom during a time when they hadn’t yet learned to walk.

So, it was out of necessity in 1910, Olivia created something that she would use for all of her seven children and then for her grandchildren.

After producing the product through her own company, Poole Manufacturing Co. Ltd. in British Columbia for the retail market, Olivia decided to patent the design. She received her patent in 1957, becoming the first Indigenous woman in Canada to hold a patent. It was patented under the name, ‘Baby Supporter and Exerciser’, a mouthful to be sure and maybe the reason the name was later changed to Jolly Jumper once she sold her company. By the time of her death in 1975, Olivia would have seen her invention sweep through Canada and the US and likely other countries.

Of course nothing comes without critics and some safety concerns were raised about the Jolly Jumper years later, by safety advocates, claiming there was too much confidence given in the door casing, that could result in accidents. Although I have never heard of any such accidents, I can imagine there is some validity to that theory. There were also health concerns for the infants as the position of the body put strain on their tiny bodies at a time when their skeletal system was not ready for it. Cautions were given that extended periods in the device were inadvisable. I’m sure there’s plenty of science behind that too. Everything evolves as more evidence becomes available, so in the future perhaps there may be no Jolly Jumpers.

Unlike Puffer Fish, Lobster or Stinging Nettle, I think if there had been an accident with the very first Jolly Jumper, Olivia wouldn’t have pursued the invention and generations of babies would have missed out on their first kicks of freedom of movement.

It also makes me wonder if perhaps the invention of the modern-day sport of bungee jumping was not somehow connected to a person who had experienced the Jolly Jumper!