This post first appeared in May 2013 and was the second post I wrote for this blog. As this will be the 500th post on the blog I thought that it would be nice to update it and post it again.
When I was a little girl mum often used to tell me about her dolls. She always regretted that she had not been able to save any of them to give to my sister and me.
Mum was born in 1921 so the dolls she had were very different to the ones that Naomi and I played with many years later.
The first doll she could remember having was given to her by her grandmother when she was three or four years old. Mum said that when she was nursing the doll a spider came out of its open mouth. She was so frightened that she dropped it and its china head broke. What a scary experience that must have been for a little girl!
By Mabalu – I (Mabalu (talk)) created this work entirely by myself., CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
Above is a German bisque doll from around 1920 perhaps mum was given something like this.
Our grandfather was in the British army and when mum was four years old the family went abroad. Over the next eight years they lived in Jersey, Malta, Egypt and India before returning to England when she was twelve.
During that time she had several dolls which she loved and learned to make clothes for. One of them had a wax face and unfortunately although mum was careful with her dolls this one melted in the hot Indian sun.
Valerie was the name of mum’s last doll and I believe she may have been a doll with a china or composition head. Valerie may have been a double jointed doll as mum often spoke of having one but I can’t remember if this was Valerie or her waxen faced predecessor. When mum got Valerie she was about fourteen and she knew that this would be the last doll she would be given so she wanted to save her for her own children. However Valerie also suffered a sad fate. She had been left sitting by an open window in the bedroom and if I remember the story correctly a cat knocked her off the sill and she fell to the ground and was smashed.
Mum never mentioned having owned a Shirley Temple doll but our Shirley would be contemporary with mum’s last doll Valerie.
While mum was alive I always hoped that I might find another doll from the 1920s or 30s to give her to remind her of her childhood companions but I was unable to find one I could afford. One day I hope that a vintage baby will join my doll family. Perhaps I will call her Valerie, or maybe Carol after mum.
Even though I never saw the dolls themselves mum and I shared many happy times talking about them and I am sure that is the reason that she gave us dolls and encouraged us to keep them safe.
Dolls, Dolls, Dolls 
I know just how she felt. The memory of what happened to Baby Cocoa lives on. I think Mum would have been a bit upset that Baby Cocoa’s head got smashed in too.
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She would have been. Not just because it was your doll but she would not have liked to see that happen to any doll.
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What an absolutely lovely story! Thank you so much for reposting. My mother never talked about dolls or seemed to have an interest in them but my grandmother, who was born in 1903, had some of her old dolls, including a beautiful doll with a bisque head. She also had a tiny porcelain headed doll with a soft body, stuffed with sawdust. I still have that doll and she is desperately in need of some new clothes. I’m always keeping an eye out for something suitable. She’s wearing a little “slip” that went under the dress, both made by my grandmother. She may have been a “vintage” doll even in my grandmother’s day. My grandmother gave me my first doll, called Floppy Flo and I dragged her around until she disintegrated – she was a rag doll. But when I was five, she gave me a Raggedy Ann, which I still have. She’s been chewed by dogs and had so many disasters and I’ve patched her up and patched up over and again. Later, my aunt who lived in Paris and Brussels began bringing dolls from Europe home at Christmas for us, dressed in their national costumes. I still have three of them. It’s so nice to share this love of dolls with like-minded people.
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That’s lovely that you still have some of your old dolls. Your porcelain doll with the cloth body must be quite antique. She must be quite heavy with sawdust inside her.
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She’s tiny so not too heavy. I took her out the other day and she hasn’t stored well. She’s been in a glass cabinet and her clothes and cloth body are very stiff. I’m reluctant to handle her.
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I would be too, perhaps you can find some advice online on preservation and storage.
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Good idea!
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Wow such stirring family stories, My dolls came late to me one sister insisted that as a child I persisted in asking her to sew me a doll, and when I was sixteen she was finally able to manage it. Now I have three dolls from sisters. My mom was too busy with 8 kids to make dolls but my granny crocheted dresses for the small sleep eye ones I saw in her bathroom. I started collecting in earnest when I finally had a home to put them in, and my daughter ditched most of hers upon moving out. I too lost a favorite when one of our kids cats knocked over a lovely French faced jointed doll. I am still searching for a new head and torso. I love character dolls from t.v. and movies and even some favorite books or fairy tales/rhymes. This blog has been so helpful in common sense tips on identification/links etc..etc.. Thanks loads!
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You are welcome.
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Congratulations on 500 posts! My mum spoke of similar experiences – a doll melted by the sun thanks to a naughty brother, a Shirley Temple doll given away. Events that stayed with her all her life. I’m so lucky to still have my childhood dolls.
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Yes, it’s nice to have favourite old dolls and toys. I wonder if today’s toys will last as long as ours have?
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Wouldn’t bank on it, with today’s throw away society.
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Sadly I think you are right.
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I love this post, indeed I also wished my mother have saved even just one doll from her childhood. You may be right, these dolls could be what your mom used to have 🙂
lovely dolls
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I enjoy reading about people’s personal experiences and enjoyed this story. I have my mother’s compo toddler doll from 1924 that I treasure. I gave all of my other dolls away at about 12 when I thought I was too old to keep them, except a swirl pony tail Barbie that I never played with. Wish I had’em now!
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I know just how you feel. I gave away a lot of my childhood dolls in my mid teens but luckily I did not want to part with others even though I was not collecting then. When I started they became the backbone of the collection. You are really lucky to have your mother’s doll for all these years. I bet people envy you your Swirl as well.
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Thank you. You are lucky to have so many sweet reminders from your childhood. I started to recollect as an adult and have bought many Barbie’s since. I also like Tammy and family, which I was a bit too old for the first go round. I like your site and have been checking back often. Nice to see like minded people.
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Yes the internet is a place where doll collectors can come to share and enjoy.
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I think if a spider had come out of a doll’s mouth when I was a child, it would have put me off dolls for life as I was terrified of spiders then.
Nice to see your blog. I used to have a lot of dolls but I was spending so much money on them that I had to give up and, have since, sold or otherwise disposed if some. (One of them got a bad case of ‘doll disease’ – where the plastic goes off and lets off fumes, so I had to get rid of her). I have a few still but not many. I do wish, though, that I’d kept some of my small dolls from childhood. I’m still trying to find out about one that I’d thought was a Sindy but can’t have been (though I did have a Sindy as well.) It was a teenage doll with moveable hands… might have been articulated in the arms too, but I can no longer remember now… does that ring any bells?
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Hi Val, some of the later Sindy’s did have moveable hands but there were also a lot of clone dolls around the same era. If you look at my clone doll posts or page there are some links there that might help you.
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