This afternoon I was up in the attic, hunting for some books--I was also rummaging around to see what I might have stored in an old bureau up there. The minute I touched it, I knew what it was:
an old Patsy Ann doll I had when I was a little girl, one that my birth mother gave me that she had had too. That means it was probably from the mid 1920s.
I was appalled at how dreadful it looked. The face was cracked, two of its fingers were gone (this kind of doll was known for leprosy attacks) and one foot had been nibbled by mice. I thought, why am I keeping this? And was contemplating a quick cremation in the stove. It's a composition doll, usually a kind of coated plaster, and it would have burnt well.
Then I picked her up, and god help us all, her eyes flew open, and I realized, I can't do this. So now she's downstairs warming by the stove while I think about what I might do to dress her up a bit.
I have a rescued doll of about that age, but porcelain. Kept by its original owner till her death in her late 90s, passed to me by her daughter who had never seen it till cleaning out her mother's house. So she wanted me to be adoptive mother. She didn't have a connection with it. Odd history.
ReplyDeleteSo now she, the doll, not the daughter, shares a rocker with an adopted teddybear. Yes, these dolls come with their own imperatives.
Your Patsy doll needs new outfits, yes.
the dress she is wearing was a baby's dress from a much earlier period, hand crochet, the whole deal. But it fits, and it gives me something to work from.
DeleteShe also needs her joints tightened (and oh don't we all at some point) and I've found a crochet hook and some good elastic strapping works wonders.
The bears are most pleased with her, and want her to sit with them, but understandably she's a bit shy of them right now.
My mother, who never learned the joys of a sewing machine, was a marvel at hand sewing teeny outfits (sleeves, too) for all my dolls.
I also had two creepy 'walking' dolls that had white metal for their mechanisms, and of course it broke and of course it was my fault. But my grandmother thought those two dolls were amazing. I had to bring them with me every time we visited. =)
Teddy bears are great comfort animals for other dolls, aren't they. =)
She is beautiful.
ReplyDeleteshe has a sweet face, doesn't she. I'll do what I can, but she's not young anymore (my lord she's nearly 100)...
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