Minerd.com Photo of the Month: Inventor Claude C. Overholt and His Monkey Blocks Toys

Courtesy Shanna Stultz

Claude C. Overholt, son of James Wesley and Almira Melissa (Minerd) Overholt of Greensburg, PA, was an inventor of several children’s games, among them these wooden building toys known as "Monkey Blocks."

Manufactured by his business Overholt Play Equipment Company of St. Louis, Claude manufactured and sold the blocks to what he called “progressive” schools, primarily throughout the Eastern United States, as creative educational tools for early childhood development. In marketing the product, he developed a booklet entitled "Type B Monkey Blocks" which included 17 pages of photographs, narrative and testimonial quotes from satisfied users. He also gifted sets of blocks to all of his grandchildren and other children and grandchildren of his relatives in his hometown area, near Pittsburgh, who fondly remember using them for play. View the sales booklet.

Perhaps intending a career in the ministry or missionary field, Claude met his wife Avis Halsey at Nyack on the Hudson Alliance Missionary College. His early working years were spent teaching high school in New York City and as a partner in an Oldsmobile dealership in Youngwood, PA. The Overholts moved to Bradford, PA about 1927 where he worked for Holgate Toys and became a traveling salesman for a check writing company. In 1929, he was employed in Bradford as an insurance agent.

In 1943, Claude and Avis separated, with him relocating to St. Louis. He continued to manufacture and market the blocks throughout the remainder of his life. While on a sales trip to Washington, DC in 1958, he was stricken with an aneurysm and died in a local hospital. Avis and their eldest daughter were en route to be at his side when he passed away.

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