WEEKLY WORDPRESS PHOTO CHALLENGE | NOSTALGIA | THE DAILY POST
The world has changed in myriad ways — huge and subtle — since I grew up. When I was a kid, none of us, regardless of how much money our parents had or didn’t have, got everything. You wanted everything, sure, because kids always want everything … but you got something. In my house, since we didn’t celebrate Christmas, birthdays were the big gift-giving day.
Each year on my birthday from when I was three until I was eight, I got one really nice doll. When I was five, I got “Annabelle,” the 1952 special doll from Madame Alexander. She would be my favorite for the rest of my life. Over her long life (she was born in 1952) she has been rewigged, restrung, repainted, and redressed half a dozen times.
I really played with my dolls. They were my friends. I talked to them. I told them everything and I took them everywhere. Everything I did, felt, hoped for, and feared, my dolls knew.
My dolls understood. Always.
When I was six, I got Toni. She was Revlon’s “flagship” girl doll with hair that could be “permanent waved” using a doll version of the Toni Permanent Wave kit. The set was just tiny plastic rollers and sugar-water and they didn’t really curl hair. They just made it sticky … which attracted ants. So then you had to wash it and you were lucky if the wig didn’t come right off her head.
There was Betsy Wetsy — also from Revlon, I believe (Tiny Tears was made by American Character). Those were the memorable dolls. Lots of little 8″ Ginnie dolls too and too many outfits to recall. Ginnie was in my day what Barbie was to the next generations of girls. It is perhaps a reflection of how the concept of girlhood changed during those years. By the time I turned 9, it was all about books.
From then on, I got books for my birthdays, though usually one other “special” thing too. One year, my beloved bicycle arrived. It was much too big for me to ride. I was a tiny wisp of a thing, but also, the only 9-year-old with a titanium frame Dutch racing bike. I had blocks on the pedals and I had to ride standing up because no way could I reach the seat or use the coaster brakes sitting down. But I grew a few inches. So, by the time I was an adolescent, I could reach the pedals without help. And, I knew I had the greatest bike ever. Tiger Racer and me … we flew!
When I was 11 I got a little transistor radio. It was a big deal, the ultra high-tech of the late 1950s. I was the only kid who had my very own portable radio. After that memory fades …
I slept with my dolls.
As I headed into my 50s, I began searching for the dolls with which I had grown up. Collecting is insidious and doll collecting even more so. I developed a bizarre lust for dolls. I didn’t know I had become a collector until I began to buy reference books so I could identify dolls by model, year, manufacturer, etc. Reference book are the significator of any kind of collector. When your reference collection is far more complete than the local library, you are a collector. Accept it. Deal with it.
These pictures are a sampling of the dolls. I tried to capture something of that ephemeral sweetness the dolls of my generation had. Perhaps show a hint of why they still give me a warm glow when I look at them. They never argue, always forgive. And they never complain and don’t mind if you drag them around by one leg with their foreheads scraping the sidewalk.
Categories: #Photography, Childhood, Dolls
Stunning collection! And there’s even Abe Lincoln! 🙂
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I used to have all the presidents, but I sold most of them. Eisenhower was very cool. He came with all his medals 🙂
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Very nice post. My sisters and I were gifted with dolls into our teen years. My Mom loved dolls and started her own collection in her sixties. I too confided in my dolls and treated them as if they were alive. My own daughters followed in my footsteps and names all their dolls.
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I thought there was some kind of law … like don’t you have to name your dolls? Isn’t that a girl rule? 🙂
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Yes, I think it is:) Name then and give them a personality. Did the same with my doll house families:)
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You see? It’s a law. It’s little girl DNA 🙂
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For me it was a new doll each Christmas until I was twelve. By that time, I started designing wardrobes for many of them. Ginny was and still is a favorite. When we moved from our Victorian home (where I had plenty of rooms to display them) in 1997, I passed most of my dolls along to my daughters. I still love dolls!
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I love them too, but I’ve had to give a lot of them away. There are still too many and they all need cleaning and dusting and other care. I wish i had someone who wanted them and had the room for them. It’s frustrating!
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Beautiful collection of dolls. What a treasure trove of memories as well
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Yes, and that is exactly why doll collecting has become such a big thing for woman my age and even younger. There’s a bit of “reconstructing childhood” involved … trying to reacquire not only what you really had, but what you wanted and never got. Lot of memories, but also, lots of yearning.
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That makes complete sense all the way around.
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I had Betsy Wetsy. My favorite was Ginny. I found one in a fabulous store. You’d enjoy this. http://wp.me/p2jC53-ayf
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I was the only one with a Betsy. Everyone else had a Tiny Tears, but I liked Betsy and so did my granddaughter, who instantly adopted her. Ginny’s were the only doll that all the little girls had and they were cheap. You could save up and get a new one for a few dollars at a toy store — back when there WERE toy stores. And outfits for sometimes less than a dollar. So we all had lots of Ginny dolls and lots of outfits. Lots of swapping, too.
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I had two Ginny dolls. I think a Tiny Tears, Barbies, Betsy Wetsy, and numerous dolls I can’t remember now. But I loved Ginny and my mom’s Shirley Temple the best. I guess because they came with special memories. My brother was better at playing with them than I was. I just wanted to keep them tidied up. 🙂
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I have a couple of Shirley Temple dolls. She was around as a doll for many years and a wide variety of iterations. Ginnies I think were gone after the 1970s, but they were beginning to go even in the 1960s. Barbie pretty much blew away the competition. Pity, though. I like the girl dolls better than the big boob fashion queen. She kind of ruined dolls for me. After that, they were all rooted hair and “fashion.” They weren’t friendly dolls.
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True, that, but I grew up after that. I think I was around 13 when Barbie came out. I learned to sew making Barbie clothes. 😀😀😀
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I never learned to sew. I tried to learn to sew, but the results … well … let’s just say NOT my forte!
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I don’t do it any more, in spite of being retired. I spend way too much time blogging, writing, and being in service organizations. And I don’t see as well as I used to, so it’s kind of a pain.
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Even my mother quit at a certain point. Eyes, neck, and I think she was just plain tired of it.
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It happens. My mom embroidered. There are just so many pillow cases a family needs!
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Madame A looks a bit like Jane Fonda in the 80’s. Had me fooled.
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And another thing, those dolls could keep a secret.
What a lovely collection, Marilyn. I remember seeing some of those doll being advertised in the magazines. I never had one – boo hoo. I’m not sure if they had such lovely dolls in Canada at the time.
Leslie
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I was lucky because my mother loved dolls. Her family was much too poor, so she only had one doll of her own for a little while. It was a china-headed doll and it broke. She never got another one. She made up for it by buying dolls for me. Only one per year, but it was always the best doll she could find. I’m pretty sure these dolls were sold all over the world. I know they were widely sold in England, so I figure also Canada, though Canada was a lot less metropolitan when we were kids.
The best place to buy anything back then was Manhattan. F.A.O. Schwartz was heaven for kids. My mother took me there once a year, right before Christmas when they had all the trains running and all the greatest dolls on display. That was where they had the Queen Elizabeth II coronation dolls, too. We never bought anything there — too expensive, but looking was free.
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I watched you working on this last night as I coughed and sniffled (Gawd, I hate this cold!). I thought you were working on another murder mystery – this one involving dolls. I like the idea. It’s RIGHT AS RAIN!
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The only dolls I can remember getting were baby dolls. Oh well, I’m kind of over it now. – But – your dolls are lovely and now realize what I missed.
Leslie
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If you have a missing doll in your life, I can spare a few dozen!
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Marilyn, we had some family member move back in with all their stuff. I just don’t have a place for anything now, but thank you so much for your kind and generous offer.
Leslie
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