Family Doll History - and a mystery!

By: Brenda (Sophie's Mom)

We have a long history of loving dolls in my family. My Grandmother loved and collected china dolls that reminded her of the dolls she played with in her childhood during the 1920s.  

One doll, similar to this lovely, was broken when she was a child and she never forgot her doll or how crushing it was, as a little girl, to lose her doll. 

In those days her parents could not afford to replace her!

This is one of my grandmother's china dolls that she saved all those years.  She is about 8" tall and wearing her original dress.  She sits in my curio cabinet today.

When I was a little girl I loved the Raggedy Ann & Andy stories.

These are my Raggedy Ann & Andy and a lovely pop-up book.

When I was a girl my Grandmother painted china as a hobby.  One Christmas she painted a china doll for me and presented her in this antique doll bed that she had played with as a child.

This is me around 1975 and here is the china doll, my grandmother painted, today.

I remember complaining because I could not play with this doll.  She stayed in Mom's China Cabinet.

More about that antique cradle, click here

SO, the next Christmas I got a vinyl doll that looked something like this...

AND HERE IS THE MYSTERY!!!

I am trying to find out what kind of doll my Grandmother gave me.

• When I opened her she looked like a china doll, but she was vinyl, so I could play with her!
• The front of her package was clear plastic so I could see her in the box.
• She must have been about 16" with brunette or auburn hair in ringlets.
• I could wash and curl her hair, which I did, frequently!
• She was dressed in a Victorian/1900s era velvet dress.  
• I think she had a vinyl/plastic head with a vinyl/plastic body, I am not too sure.
• I feel that she was close in size to an American Girl, but I was quite small and she might have been smaller than I recall.
• I received her around 1974 - 1976, so too early for an AG. In my mind she resembles a Molly or Samantha though.

This dress I made for my Molly

is reminiscent of this long lost doll.

I think my Molly has never looked prettier!

To see the mystery solved click here!

Funny note: I was looking through ebay and Amazon
for a Victorian dress to buy for Molly, then I thought, "Hey, I sew."  

A day or two later and VOILA! The dress above made from Samantha's dress pattern. 

Silly Mommy!