I love my girls, who live on top of the cabinet in the office and watch over all activities. They have a good view of the mountains, as well.
I’ve haven’t written about them in a while. Since some of you are newer readers, I thought I’d tell you a little bit about them.
On the left: my Mom’s Shirley Temple doll. The back story to Shirley (and you might remember my mom’s name was Shirley, too) is that like every little girl in the thirties, Mom wanted a Shirley Temple Doll. After all, they shared the same name and were about the same age. She wanted the Ideal Toy Company version of Shirley. Unfortunately, my grandmother bought her a Canadian version of the doll and my mom was disappointed, so disappointed that she still had a lot of anger in her voice when she spoke of it years and years later! Nonetheless, she was my mom’s doll and I put in my bid for her when I was young. In the meantime, she sat in a child’s oak rocker in our bedroom. I believe Meredith has that rocker now. When I finally got her – and I can’t remember when that was – I was thrilled. Her hair was a mess. Believe me, I spent an awful lot of time researching doll hair and banana curls. I used sponge rollers and tried to get the curls back. There are a few, but that’s it. I bought the outfit from someone online who made new dresses in the style of the original clothing that came with the Ideal Shirley Temple doll.
Her composition face has a little hole by the eye. Other than that, she’s as beautiful as ever. The flowered head band is a piece I found in an antique shop and I decided Shirley needed it (perhaps to counteract the hair?) I bought vintage Shirley Temple doll shoes on eBay.
In the middle: Emma. I first saw her many years ago in a local antique shop. She reminded me of my long lost Tiny Tears doll (another “Mom gives away without my knowledge” story – I can’t go there.) In fact, she may be a Tiny Tears doll. She was sitting in a chair in a booth just inside the entrance of the store. I was entranced.
She has a composition body that is cracked in some places and missing bits of the composition in others. She’s tiny. And she is dressed in clothing with the most exquisite details.
Her bonnet.
Her bloomers. Check out those rosy knees!
Her shoes and socks. All beautifully preserved. You can see some of the missing composition on her leg.
I was taken not only by her beauty but by the fact that she was all alone in that booth. Some little girl had loved her long ago – and because of the damage to the composition, she was less than ‘perfect,’ although she was entirely perfect to me.
In the end, I didn’t get her because we were just scraping by at the time and I couldn’t justify the price. I think she was around $60, but I can’t be sure. She was worth every penny…but no.
I went back to the shop a couple of months later. She was still there. No one had taken her home. My heart was breaking for her.
But I still couldn’t afford her.
Not long after that, I went out to San Diego to coach for several weeks. This must have been in 2009 or 2010. To say I couldn’t get her out of my mind is entirely accurate. She haunted me.
Finally, one day, after I had a paycheck in the bank, I looked up the antique shop’s phone number and I called. When I haltingly brought up the doll I had seen and her location in the store and then hesitantly asked if she was still there, the gentleman I was speaking to immediately said yes. He knew exactly what doll I was referring to. I explained my situation – that I would be away for a number of weeks and if I paid for her now, would the shop be willing to hold her until I got back?
Yes, he said. So I paid for little Emma. And within a few days of my return home, we drove over to Rhinebeck to bring her home.
And finally, beautiful, happy little Tressa. Tressa is real life sized and when I hold her, it’s just as if I’m holding a baby. My friend Heidi and I discovered Tressa one day while antiquing. Heidi, for those of you who might not know of her, owned a local shop (now closed) and I worked there part-time. The shop was a mixture of antiques and new items. Heidi saw her first and fell in love with her. As we were pondering whether she would be perfect for the ‘baby room’ portion of the shop, the woman behind the counter pointed out that she had two left feet.
Often, when dolls were repaired and body parts replaced, another limb was attached and in this case – it was another left foot. Well, that only made us want her even more. She came to the shop and lived on a shelf in a cabinet. Every time I went to work, I would pick her up and hold her. And, as with Emma, I went away to California to coach (2009?), and left her behind. When I came home for a week to visit, I visited Heidi at the shop and held her again.
It was no use. I had to have her. So I brought her home. I named her Tressa, after my great aunt. I have a photo somewhere of both Riley and Scout inspecting her (as if she was a real baby) the day I brought her home. She’s beautifully dressed in satin . She has the sweetest face.
And she has two left feet.
I love my girls.
In the first photo: the cup with the C design is a baby cup from Emma Bridgewater, which I found years ago in London, the name plate was on my father’s desk at Michigan Bell Telephone Company, and the piano is vintage Shoenhut, a gift from Heidi.
The little bunny egg cozy is Barnaby – the first name suggested. Don loved it. I loved it. But every suggestion was delightful and I now have a bunch of names at the ready for the next bunny egg cozy. Thank you!
Happy Thursday.
Your dolls are very special. I have one little doll my Mom bought in England and gave to Sara. I still have it here and Scout and Tiger both have played with her. I believe she is a Ginny doll. Ashleigh saved her first babydoll and still has it to this day, her name was Maria (we were big Sesame Street fans). I love dolls as a girl but never kept any it seems and don’t have any now except sweet Ginny!
I loved Barnaby also, just perfect. I hope the play is going well for Don. I’m resting today and hoping the meds kick in. So tired today but antibiotics do that to me. Hugs!
I know of Ginny dolls. They were very popular! Feel better and rest, my friend.
More egg cozy knitting ?!! Perhaps for sale?
P.S. Your Girls are very special and also fortunate to have found a home with you.
I don’t think I want to get into selling them. Too hard on my wrists – the minute I start selling something, I end up overdoing things. And this is someone else’s pattern that she sells on Revelry and I don’t want to profit from that.
Tressa is indeed a very beautiful baby…er, doll. Very life-like. I sold my dolls when my kids were little..needed the funds for some such…and there happened to be a doll show in town. I had a Barbie, Ken, Shirley Temple, and a several others. Fortuitous for sure! It’s always fun to see others’ collections, or to think what might have been had I kept mine. And, had I had little girls…I might have kept them. But, truth be told…I’d probably do it all over again. I did keep some of my most precious stuffed animals…they were my true loves. Enjoy your day! ;)
I had a Barbie, too. Again: Mom gave it away. Sigh!
Your little dolly family is adorable. They look like good company. I too am the victim of a mother freely giving away my things without asking. My own Tiny Tears? A mystery. With so very many cousins, I’m guessing one of them got it. Maybe even the same one I gave my Barbie to (I had one of the first). Not a huge fan, so no loss. But LOVED my baby dolls. Today I’d give anything to be able to display the big antique baby doll, given to me in the fifties by my paternal grandmother. I think were I to talk into an antique shop and see the right one, I’d be sorely tempted to splurge too.
My Tiny Tears had a slew of clothing handmade by my grandmother. Breaks my heart. I hope you find a doll like the one you lost! I know the feeling!
Exactly the same thing; there must have been patterns out there? My grandma, too, made dresses for my Tiny Tears! I still have them, thank goodness. Mom…oh, those moms of ours…got rid of other dolls (like Barbie) but, for some reason, she kept Tiny Tears and her outfits. I love to think of my grandma…can hardly remember her, as she died when I was age 8…making the little dresses (hand-stitched) with her work-worn hands, bless her. Little scraps of tulle; pretty bows. What was in her sewing box?
I have spent a small fortune replacing things of my childhood. (I’ve gone to great lengths, believe me.) We’ve spoken of it here before…the lost treasures. I have now replaced my Barbie, Midge, Skipper (and some of their clothes) with the authentic Mattel/Barbie Collector repros all of which have now expired unless you can find them on eBay/Amazon secondhand marketplace. I’ve also been able to replace the majority of my most beloved childhood books except one, which was a collection of short stories for ‘a young girl’s summer reading’ which was given to me by an auntie when I was ill for nearly an entire summer and confined indoors (to bed, actually; it was awful). All I remember is that there was one story which always stayed in my memory and I could swear it was by Willa Cather but I’ve never been able to connect the dots. I’ve even replaced an entire child’s set of dictionary (encylopedia-esque) books; 21 volumes I think. It’s taken me YEARS and I don’t know why it became so important to me in my 50s to do this, but it did. Provides a certain comfort. Mother DID keep several books of mine; so glad she did…but I’ve never been able to figure out how she chose what to save and what to keep. I’m really grateful she kept some of my schoolwork…I have things I drew or wrote when I was in 2nd grade, 3rd grade, 5th grade, 7th grade and through high school, even my term paper for French IV. It’s been a lotta years gone by, Claudia; I think we just have to be glad for what survived!
Same here, Vicki. You know I’m always trying to find things that my Mom gave away or that were just lost in the years after childhood. There is indeed a comfort in that – I think!
I don’t think the moms were being malicious. I’ve gotten plenty angry over it, and even probed Mom about it in other years before she got older/sick…never could seem to get an answer that satisfied me! I wasn’t ALWAYS a very-sickly kid (things improved for me a lot as I journeyed through the years of childhood/adolescence; better medicines, for one) and I really did get to play outside and be a normal kid as much as possible some of the time despite crippling asthma of the day, so I’ve thought that maybe I’ve forgotten that my Barbie family was likely somewhat thrashed after lots of hard, outdoor, little-girl, hands-on play. We neighborhood pals would stick them in the boys’ trucks (let’s go camping in the desert, AKA dirt), dunk them in water (pretending it was a swimming pool), sometimes ‘trim’ their hair (yikes); little bags, shoes and accessories were easily lost. And it was a different plastic in the late 50s/early 60s than how the Barbie dolls are made today; it would get shiny/weepy with age, the earrings would bleed green from the metals used. That’s why an intact, great-shape Barbie from, say, 1959 (the first ones), is worth $25,000+ today.
It wasn’t like Mom didn’t know her ‘antiques’ and ‘vintage’ – she was up on all that stuff and had researched her own dolls although I think that happened much later. They were all just young women trying to organize a household while they were growing their babies and also, for some of them, working at jobs outside the home; they were busy, with fewer home conveniences around than today; just trying to keep up with household cleaning, getting things out from under foot…but, no doubt about it, I can remember Mom getting the ‘itch’ and throwing stuff out all over the house (not wild & crazy, but what I guess she thought was insignificant or past its time or in the way), rearranging furniture in the rooms; some kind of nesting restlessness or nervous energy. We rarely bought anything…didn’t add much to the house when I was growing up, like new furniture…so maybe rearranging the furniture made it seem like new.
We did live in smallish houses…this very one I’m living in right now, for instance (my childhood home); very common size from the 50s, not custom, just tract homes with no special features like built-ins or great storage; fairly bare bones, so to speak. They fill up fast. So, with four or five ‘bodies’ in the house, and their things taking up space, it’s certainly easy to see why the mom and/or dad had to keep on top of ‘accumulation’ with decluttering. We had one small bookcase, mostly for my parents’ books…and I had room for some books in my nightstand. That was IT, although I did line up some books very neatly on my dresser with bookends. My folks weren’t going to buy another bookcase, and Mom wasn’t going to allow books stacked on the floor in a corner of the room; she damp-mopped the wood floor in my bedroom every single day til I was in high school as dust would get to my airways (so much for playing with Barbie in the dirt when I was out of her eyesight!). She wasn’t a total neat freak…she had a couple of junk drawers!… but she definitely did not like piles of things sitting around on counter space or tables…which was part of why we didn’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of that when we were BOTH mature women because I live entirely differently than she did as an adult. I’m not proud of it, but I have books stuffed in any nook I can find! I’m full to the brim…and that’s just books.
Anyway, that was then; this is now; can’t go back. Our parents were the adults. They made their best decisions for the family and home environment, as much as they knew what or how to do!
My mom was very loving. She just had this side to her that was efficient to the max. So when she decided something had to go, she took care of it. She did save certain things for me and I’m grateful, but the dolls? No. And let’s not forget that when they decided to move to Northern Michigan (I was living in a studio apt in Philadelphia and in grad school) she decided my piano couldn’t go with them and she called me and told me she was going to sell it. This, by the way, was my grandmother’s piano (her mother) and then it was passed on to my and all of the kids learned to play on it. I cried and cried because I was poor and couldn’t afford to move it from Michigan to Philadelphia. Thankfully, my aunt (on my dad’s side) heard about it and said that was nonsense! She would take temporary custody until I was settled enough to move it. Ever grateful to her. When Don and I moved in together in SD, I paid to have it moved there.
Wow.
What’s with the pianos?
My grandma died and Mom didn’t even have a piano, yet she gave it to the church! It was SPECIAL; it was her mom’s! Why??? Bought for her mom when Grandma was a little girl, like somewhere around 1910; I’ve never quite been able to pin down the exact age of the piano. It’s a Ludwig & Co. out of New York (the Bronx), although it says on the backpiece, “Philadelphia, Buffalo, Paris, London”. They built beautiful upright pianos from the late 1800s to I think around the WWII era, their heyday being just after the turn of the century. Grandma’s piano isn’t one of those giant uprights but instead quite feminine and pretty with elaborate wood carving. I always, always had loved it, and it makes me think of my dear grandmother, who adored me and I adored her.
But the youth group for the church, which would meet in the basement of the manse, where the piano wound up, painted it white with orange flowers in the hippie years…flower power…so the piano’s got to be taken back to its beautiful wood; I don’t know what kind of wood.
Grandma learned to play on it, Mom learned to play on it; I learned to play on it. Three generations of girls. And then Mom gave it away within a month of Grandma’s death?! Were the uprights unfashionable in the 60s? Was there not such a reverence for ‘old things’ back then, although I know Mom always loved certain ‘old things’ like dolls; dishes. (I know in my town, nobody got behind old buildings that got torn down, which people regret today…but, back then, when I was a kid, there was no historical society, no group getting formed to ‘save’ something; ‘hey, it’s the space age, let’s make everything new and modern and futuristic!’) Did Dad make Mom think the piano was too heavy for the floor? I sort of remember that conversation unless I’m dreaming…I was only age 8. (So what? Just go underneath the house and put in a couple of supports!) Was Mom not ‘herself’ and too despondent over the loss of her mother, such that the piano wasn’t a good reminder? Again, never got an answer that made any sense to me.
I never forgot the piano. (I can SO feel your pain, Claudia!!) Tried to get the piano back when I got married and finally had some room with our first house, and the minister said they’d made the carriage door to the basement into a window and the outer door was too narrow. Fast forward a dozen years later, minister retires and is putting house up for sale (he’d since bought it from the church); he was permanently leaving the area, downsizing…and was now a widower. I called him about the piano and he said the new owner intended to put an ax to the piano because there other way to remove it from the basement. I’m sure I’m repeating this story, but I got about six men with a trailer to squeak that piano thru that narrow outer door and they did it.
But the piano has gone from 40 years in that dank basement to an outdoor shed (instrument heavily tarped and on concrete flooring…but I was stupid; I should have rented an offsite storage unit for it, although such places weren’t as common to find back then, and I sure could not have afforded any kind of climate-controlled unit); finally, to two uninsulated garages (temperature extremes, so this is ruinous to a piano’s soundboard but also strings [corrosion], keys, felts, everything [the woods alone]; they don’t do well with humidity [plays havoc with all the glued joints]). The piano needs to be completely restored now (although it still plays; has all its keys, just one loose ‘black’ key) but I never seem to have the $5,000 to do that, although I’m thinking of selling my vintage car, which I’ve owned for almost 43 years, and putting those proceeds toward the piano so that I can indeed finally bring it inside…and play it, til I eventually find its proper next owner. I’m rusty, but I do play. Mom and my grandmother played beautifully and perfectly.
If Mom had just brought home the piano 55 years ago to this house, it would be in my living room right now. Until it was at the church’s manse, it had always been kept safe inside a house, for over 50 years, and not abused the way it’s been since that time. But Mom apparently wanted a smaller piano…she got a spinet, which doesn’t have the wonderful sound or easy touch of keys that Grandma’s upright has…and, you know one of the worst things(?), in the moving around of Grandma’s piano, the matching stool got ‘lost’ at the church somewhere along the way, which is a BIG loss. To me. I twirled and twirled on that round swivel stool when I was a kid. And I think it had glass/crystal knobs in the legs as decoration. Again, where was Mom’s sentimentality? Efficiency? Getting modern? I hear you, Claudia!
I also have my aunt’s parlor (pump) organ from the mid-to-late 1800s (I think 1850 sticks in my mind although they were common in the U.S. by the 1880s) and I have no idea what I’m going to do with it. As opposed to the poor piano, this organ has always been kept inside a home. It’s really not a family piece; the aunt wasn’t a ‘blood’ relative but actually a years-long friend of Mom’s; the organ was given to my aunt from one of HER friends and I have no idea where SHE got it, but Mother did the research and the organ is now likely 150 years old; I just can’t find the papers on it with our current remodeling mess (stuff boxed up). A piano restorer told me that the only way I’m probably going to be able to sell it is on eBay; someone looking for something very specific.
Ivory keys I’m sure, German script on the ‘knobs’ you pull out (I think they call them ‘stops’ [they allow the sound]) – it also has an intricate upper section called a hutch, or canopy (but I don’t know if it’s original to the organ; these were generally two separate pieces, so sometimes the hutches didn’t make it to the same destination over the decades as the actual instrument). The foot peddles don’t work; collapsed. Bellows must have a hole; probably moths or just age/deterioration. All of this can be repaired. Costly. I have no repair/restoration quotes yet (piano will be the priority, not the organ); much more reticent to spend money on this kind of thing in these looming retirement/fixed-income years. Wish I could have pulled it off sooner. I didn’t plan it as wisely as I might have…
It’s so sad; these wonderful organs are not worth much today; a few hundred dollars, if that. (But such a conversation piece; so decorative; and, if they play, glorious sound. I played on this one when I was a kid a lot! Little feet just pumping away!) If it’s unrestored and you want to sell it in as-is condition? Forget it. You can get them practically for free, sitting out on somebody’s sidewalk curb. Has to be that serendipitous, peculiar match between buyer and seller. A singular, particular set of circumstances for a sale.
But like, with my piano and organ, I can’t sell them…won’t/can’t…in the shape they’re in right now. I couldn’t even give an antique hall table/console (family piece) I had to my cousin til I had it restored.
I just think it’s very important to have reverence for the past and keep what’s reasonable in a family…but, you know, the thing with a piano and organ, is that they’re heavy and costly to move; afterward, you’ve got to find a piano tuner to reverse any alteration from the move; the instruments take up a lot of space. Sigh. And there’s no love lost with my husband on this stuff of mine; if I passed before I could get them restored, he’d indeed be the guy who would say ‘free’ on craigslist, putting both piano and organ out on the sidewalk (he’s just very practical, and a minimalist), but what if nobody came? I saw a piano sitting out on a curb for days with no takers. And then it rained.
I read an article in the Times sometime in the last year. Pianos just aren’t selling. When people want to sell a piano on eBay or Craig’s List or whatever, no one wants to buy them. That makes me so, so sad. There is so much family history with my piano that I couldn’t sell it. It takes up way too much space in the living room, but there it is. It, like yours, needs repair, which come to think of it, I should do. Our house is dry and I think that doesn’t help. It had ivory keys originally – for years. But when I took it back from my Aunt, so many had chipped and yellowed, that I was advised to replace them – so I did.
What a saga with your piano! I’m glad it’s back in your hands. You and I are all about the history of a piece and if it’s family history, that’s even more important. I hardly ever play and Don is constantly urging me to. Maybe I’ll get it repaired while he’s gone…hmmm.
A piano almost used to be a status symbol…or, no, just a really nice addition to a living room. It seems like any family I knew growing up had a piano and it was important to them.
Now, the kids growing up just want those ugly portable keyboards. Or, for all I know, they play on the computer or something.
I don’t like so much of how we’ve changed. We’ve lost too much. I wonder if my grandparents said the same thing with progress…
…oh well, Claudia, we’ll figure it out; and at least we did rescue the pianos, although we’re not done yet (I worry there’ll be a day when you can’t even find people anymore who know how to tune a piano or repair/restore one, but there are people/companies online except how would you even get the piano TO them if they’re thousands of miles away – I do have someone more local, if he’s still doing the work but every time I have this piano moved, it’s a few hundred dollars even if it’s a few miles; but at least you have yours in the house (with remodeling and space issues since I got the piano, I’ve never been able to get mine into the main part of my house yet).
I guess we’d best end the piano subject; thanks for letting me talk it out.
Those portable keyboards and/or computers will never be as good as a real piano!
I had a Tiny Tears doll and a Ginny doll, too, but no longer in my care. I think I was a year or two beyond the Barbie dolls. My sister, who was 9 years younger, had many of those. I have one little doll which my Great Grandmother brought from Germany. She is not in good repair, but she still has an honored place up on a shelf.
We have a cool and cloudy day today. Supposed to have sun the next several days, but low 60’s. We will enjoy those days as it will be too warm soon enough. Have a lovely Thursday!!
Cool, cloudy and rainy here, though it looks like the rain has finally stopped!
Shirley is adorable, but my heart always belonged to the baby dolls. Emma and Tressa are beautiful. They were meant for you and seem to have waited patiently for you to bring them home! I had several baby dolls and to me they were my babies, but they are long gone. I used my allowance to buy a small tin of baby powder for them and they smelled wonderful! When I was 10 – 11 years old, I was told I was too old for dolls so they all went. But like many childhood loves, I still love baby dolls and always look at them at Christmas to see the current line of baby dolls. But I find the composition dolls of my childhood hold my heart rather than today’s vinyl dolls even though some are beautiful . Love seeing your girls and it is always great fun when you share your collections but I suspect your girls are a bit more then a collection!
Hope you and Don have worked out a time schedule for your phone visits. Enjoy your blossoming garden as spring rolls along. Dianne
Love that you bought baby powder! I think the composition dolls are beautiful – much more so than vinyl!
Hi Claudia….I really enjoyed today’s post, especially because I am a doll person! Your babies are adorable. I hope this gets through to your blog comment section and thanks for the email. Sincerely, Susan
I sent you an email saying the comment went through. It’s a mystery!
Thanks, Susan!
I’m glad your dolls are well-loved. I have a Shirley Temple made by Ideal, from the late ’50’s. About 14-16″ tall, But more reasonably proportioned than Barbie. My Mom sewed a lot of clothes for her. I had wanted a Barbie doll, but now I’m glad I have ST. The other ST I have is my Mom’s, given to her by the rich woman for whom my Grandpa worked as a cook and houseboy. The doll is porcelaine and there’s some damage to the face, but I haven’t found any place to get her fixed. She comes with a leather trunk, and some original accessories, including a real boar’s hair brush. My Mom and Grandma sewed some clothes for her too.
What a treasure that doll from your grandmother is! I sometimes think of trying to buy an Ideal Shirley Temple – but, and I know this sounds crazy – it seems disloyal to the one I have. Sigh.
Barnaby – how perfect!!! Your girls are charming, made even more so by the stories behind each one!
Thank you, Debbie!
I’m so pleased to have helped name Barnaby Bunny! He really is so cute.
The stories about your dolls are wonderful. I was a tomboy as a child, so I had Barbies and I would dress them up and comb their hair – and then put them in my big Tonka truck Jeep and roll them down the hill behind the house. They were usually rescuing Ken from something, on those adventures. I did also have Cabbage Patch Dolls which were only for playing ‘baby’ with (no adventures in the dirt or garden for them). My favorite doll, though, is a bright pink plaid doll that my maternal grandma made when I was maybe 5-ish. It has pink yarn hair, and a pink dress with a white petticoat and pink bloomers. I never really played with her, but I always loved her, even when I got older and hated pink. :D
I do still have the Cabbage Patch Dolls and the pink doll, though I gave up the Barbies when I was a teenager.
I really like how you display your collections, and decorate your house. It all looks so interesting and welcoming.
Thank you for your suggestion, Amy!
My platinum haired Barbie is long gone – another doll that my grandmother made clothes for. Sigh. Love your pink plaid doll!
Oh, that Tressa; she’s sweet. You have beautiful girls.
I have a big job ahead of me with Mom’s dolls. She grew up poor, so her dolls were hand-me-downs, which makes them even older; some date from the 1800s. They’re quite battered. I learned of a guy who repairs dolls in your state. I have his name written down somewhere. I need to get these dolls packaged and sent to him. Until then, I call them the Franken dolls (like Frankenstein) because their faces and heads are cracked/chipped although this guy is supposed to be able to fix ANYTHING as long as you don’t give him a deadline. I have no one to give the dolls to once I’m gone, but I feel a duty to get them repaired so that someone out there can continue to love them as Mom did her whole, long life. They can’t be enjoyed as is, missing limbs, etc. But they deserve to enjoy some of their former glory.
Mom DID keep my Tiny Tears; the doll was stored in a cedar chest of Mom’s and I think Mom had her stored in plastic (big mistake). Hadn’t seen her in so many years but, I have to tell you, Claudia; I had to make a decision. It was time for Tiny Tears to go. It must have been the dampness from the tears, maybe not stored when she was totally ‘dried out’…or something up with the cedar chest and that plastic…but she was a irreversibly mottled, spotted, plastic/vinyl (I don’t know the composition) MESS, which no little girl anywhere could have ever enjoyed again. Not everything lasts. I would have preferred to remember her when she was whole and so darling.
Compositions dolls were made in the early decades of the 20th C (and before). By the time later versions of Tiny Tears came along, dolls were made of vinyl.
Hey Claudia,
i love your dolls nd the story behind them. I thank you for sharing this because I am a fairly
new reader of your blog and had no idea about your lovey sweet dolls!
I started with Tiny Tears and then went to a few Madame Alexander dolls. Finally the Barbies were in the house . Barbie actually got me through our first big move probably.
I was a fairly serious ballet student so my first Madame Alexander was a ballerina with freckles. We lived in Southern Pines/ Pinehurst NC (what a beautiful area of the South)
The first time I finally got a Barbie, she had black hair, a striped bathing suit and a woman’s body. I think I loved the baby dolls best, and I count my ballerina with them. I forgot where you grew up (sorry) but my dance teacher was a former Rockette from “New YoRk City, honey”..drawled my mama. It was sheer luck to be able to study dance in her studio..and NOW that I think about your dolls and all our dolls from your readers….. my dolls needs to leave my late parent’s house and make my younger brother release my dolls etc….this I must do. Family drama..but he has the family home. gotta get my dolls.
Thank you again for your doll history. I can get way too “Southern story teller”..sorry Claudia but we do love our oral history way too much sometimes. You just brought it out in me.
I remember going to a local department store and staring at the Madame Alexander dolls – I wanted one so much! (I don’t think I ever got one!)
I grew up in Michigan! And don’t worry about sharing your oral history – I love hearing from all of you.
Get those dolls back from your brother!
oops typos…narration let me down and my editing was none.. sorry.
xo
Your dolls are lovely. My twin sister and I collect dolls. We still have our Shirley Temple dolls,Ginny dolls and Mousketeer dolls. Our Ginny dolls have the furniture and extra clothes,too kept in doll trunks. We also have the pull out couch for the Ginny dolls. We have a few Barbies we purchased when older. Our Tiny Tears dolls are long gone. The rubber arms rotted away,so they were thrown out. Thank you for sharing ,I enjoyed this post. My twin sister did,too.
Marilyn
For some reason I never had a Ginny doll! I don’t know why!
LOVE your precious dolls. I have my original Betsy McCall doll. Thanks for sharing these darling babies with us.
Judy
Oh, Betsy McCall! Remember the paper dolls?
OMG! I love your girls too.
I think this is my favorite post of all time of any blog that I have read.
Thank you.
I too had a Tiny Tears & a Chatty Cathy, Barbie and others. I have no idea what happened to them. My Mom didn’t have any dolls that I’m aware of.
Your girls are all beautiful and priceless.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Wow :)
You are most welcome, Monica! I’m glad it made you happy!
Love your dolls and their stories! <3 I have a few precious dolls that I have found to replace my childhood ones too. Well, they don't really replace them … but help ease the pain. Have a wonderful weekend!
Yes, they do. I feel like I have some dolls of my own, even though the childhood dolls are long gone!