MY FIRST DOLL

My Mother died in 1975 and a few years later, Dad was no longer able to live in his home. We children gathered to empty their home so it could be sold. I found my doll that I had shortly after I was born in 1922. As time passed, I had five brothers and two sisters. I remember little brothers playing with little wheel barrows and hauling my dolly to the cemetery. The head and a breast plate were metal and the body was cloth stuffed with cotton. Shortly after World War I, Germany made a few of these kinds of dolls.

The cotton was bulging out of legs, a lot of the paint was scraped off of the head and she looked to me like she was at the end of her life. My sister, Elaine, said, “I’ll take it home and fix her for you.”

It wasn’t long before she had made a new body, pantaloons, a slip, a green print dress with a cameo necklace and had totally removed the paint from the head! She did not know to repair the head. I was taking lesson in ceramics from a lady who made porcelain doll heads. She said she never worked with metal but would make suggestions to me, if I wanted to try to repair it. Then it would be “my work.” She had me put a skin color on first Then she had me put on an acrylic spray as she did with every color I used until it was completed. When I wanted to give the doll green eyes, she did not think much of my idea. Then I showed her the green dress and she agreed. When I put the hair color on, it seemed to take on a “light and dark look” because of the uneven surface of the hair area. I am delighted to have it to display on an easel next to a painting in my living room. She is back in the “living world.”

E. Joyce Reid

My First Train Ride

THE FIRST TRAIN RIDE I remember

In 1927, I was five years old. I lived in Neenah, WI. Mother’s eleven year old brother, Vernon Andersen died on June 14, 1927. He was driving a team of horses on the hilly, curvy roads along Lake Superior in northern Minnesota when the horses got spooked and ran away. The boards of the empty wagon piled up on him and killed him. It was imperative that family go to Grand Maris, MN for the funeral. The winter before, when I was three, I went up there on the train but I do not remember that part. I remember Uncle Vernon carrying us kids down a hall and throwing us on a bed which we thought was great fun. As I was only 4 years old, I thought he was a grown up.
My great Grandma “Jane” Pryse, her daughter (my great aunt) and several of great grandma’s sisters plus my mother, me and brother, Sheldon, 3 years old, went on a train to Grand Maris, MN for the funeral. It was about 400 miles. At three and five, it was great fun to be on the train and fairly bounce up and down the aisle from one “old lady” to the other. There was a water faucet and a paper “pocket” that squeezed into a paper cup at the end of the railroad car and we seemed to be very thirsty as we got one person after another to help us get water. Little kids get lots of attention from “old” ladies when there is nothing else to do.
I do not remember any more of the train ride. When we arrived at Grandma and Grandpa Andersen’s home, I found they had a country store which also was the Post Office. There was a big curtain along the side of the store and opened up into the living room of their home. The store was closed for business for the funeral. The casket was in front of the counter. The curtain was open and the people who attended the funeral were seated in the living room. Within a couple days, great Grandma Pryse and aunts went home and we stayed a few days.
I remember Uncle Vernon had a neat little wagon and I asked Mother if I could play with it. She told me “no”, thinking it might make Grandma feel bad and she interrupted with, “Let them play with it.” We did. My mother, my brother, Sheldon and I visited for some time and Grandpa and Grandma Andersen drove us back home to Neenah, WI. The car was Aunt Sylvia’s Model T sedan. Grandpa was concerned the whole trip that the Graham crackers Mother gave us would leave crumbs in Aunt Sylvia’s car!
Soon after we arrived in Neenah, Grandpa and Grandma Andersen got word that their home-store burned to the ground! The next year on, June 2, 1928 Grandma Margaret Andersen’s father, Edward John Pryse died. Grandma Margaret “Jane” Pryse at 68 years old, thought she was too old to live alone and her daughter Margaret and husband Harvey Andersen moved down to Neenah, WI to live with her mother. He got a job to run the Filter Plant for Neenah Paper Company. Margaret Andersen died Oct. 15,1936 at 50 years old. Her mother “Jane” Pryse lived until 1956 and died at 96 years old!

E. Joyce Reid