8 – Doll Photo

Doll Photo Tells The Story

By Barbara Dodge

What happened to my Story Book Dolls? This is a question I still ask myself.

During the 1950s, I can recall having eight small stand-up dolls dressed in beautiful gowns of many colors with a hat or head piece that matched. The words Story Book Dolls was the name given to them.

I grew up on a farm near Eagle Grove, Iowa, with my parents, Everett and Burnis McCutcheon, and Beverly Jacobson, my sister. Those dolls were given to me by my parents for Easter or Christmas. How delighted I was, when a new one had red hair, as that was the color of my hair too. Each doll had on a beautiful gown and a hat or hair piece to match.

Using my imagination was one thing I was good at. When Joyce, my cousin, would come to the farm for the day, we usually played with my dolls. There were baby dolls that drank water and wet, bigger dolls with a variety of clothes, or my Story Book Dolls. Joyce had a good imagination too, so we were never at a loss as to what to pretend.

In year 2010, as Bev and I were going through the colored slides Dad had taken during the 1950s, we came upon a picture of my Story Book Dolls. Suddenly Bev and I had the same thought; what happened to them. During the 1970s, our parents went south each winter; one year their farm house was broken into. Jewelry, their T.V., my dad’s antique high chair, that could also be made into a rocker, were taken along with some other small items. My stepmother was in the process of restoring that high chair.

Bev and I now wondered, did those robbers take the dolls from one of the upstairs bedrooms? We weren’t even sure the dolls were in the bedroom, but we could come up with no better answer. Finding the colored slide of the dolls, mixed in with the many other slides Dad had, proved that at one time I did play with those dolls.

After having reminisced about the dolls, Bev gave me one of her old Story Book Dolls for Christmas that year. Bev had four of those dolls too, but she was married at the time of the break-in and her dolls were in her house.

The one she selected to give me was a red-headed doll dressed in a white and green gown. It couldn’t have been more perfect, as it matched my red head. I still think of those lost dolls, when I’m walking through the house and notice my collection of other dolls that I have placed throughout the rooms. I am so thankful to have the photo showing those Story Book Dolls really did exist.

Vol. 39 – Copyright © Yesterday’s Magazette – 2012