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Mark Dornbush passed away last night at the age of 45 years old. His health had been getting worse for the last year. The first few years of going to Dyersville, Iowa, we would go through Chicago and around Lake Michigan. After meeting Mark the first time at the National Toy Show, he invited Deb and I to come see his toy collection and park our motorhome on their farm overnight. I was new to going to toys shows, this was our first one. So I did not know what to expect as far as someones toy collection. Well, let me just say of the half a dozen times we went to Mark’s, I was always in awe of all the toys he had collected. He had everything in place and on display in glass cases just like a museum. I always spent the first 45 minutes looking at all his cool stuff while Deb would visit with Mark and his mom and dad. It was one AWESOME Collection!!
Mark had been in Toy Farmer Magazine a few times over the years. Mark always called me, ( Mr. Toy Farmer ) and he would laugh knowing it would get a rise out of me. We had our two favorite eating places near their farm and his good friends , Tom and Jr. Gaspardo would usually join us for dinner at these down home great eating places and we always had great conversations while we ate.
We would camp out in our motorhome on their farm and Deb and I would get up early and walk part way around the section looking at the farms. That was always fun too.
The year Nicole and Bill bought their Dodge Viper, Mark called us and said they had a Dodge Dealer new them that sold Dodge Vipers. He told us movie stars even bought Vipers there. We teased him and told him he didn’t even know the difference between a Viper and a Neon, because he was just a country boy that only knew about farm tractors, ha,ha. Everytime we talked to him he would say the next time you come here, I will prove it to you.
So the next fall we got to Mark’s and on our way out to dinner, we drove to the nearby Dodge Dealer , and the whole time Deb and I were teasing him about they were probably Dodge Neons or something. As we pulled in to the dealership we did not see a single Dodge Viper. Not ONE ANYWHERE !! , But there WAS a whole row of Dodge Neons! Mark kept saying they were not Neons !! As we walked in the door I about fell on the floor. Inside that little showroom was 17 Dodge Vipers parked just as close as they could be in a half circle using up all the dealership floor space. I could not get over it, he was RIGHT !! We knew he probably was right, but it was a very funny memory we had with Mark and his mom and dad. We talked about that and teased Mark everytime we saw him and we would all laugh about it.
I built Mark several one of a kind farm toys like the real ones they had on the farm. Mark had a big planter he wanted me to make him next. Each Christmas he would send a cool picture of them on a Christmas Card and they looked very real with a realistic background.
All the nice people we have met and gone out to dinner with and visited their farms and collections, we never got as close to them as we did Mark and his mom and dad.
We will surely miss him and we are very glad to have made so many fun memories that we can keep on our fun visits that we had with Mark Dornbush. Thanks Mark for a lot of fun memories, until we meet again ,
” Mr. Toy Farmer ”
