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
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