Child-size Furniture and Old Dolls

There is nothing more exciting to a little child than to provide them with furniture sized just for them.  The furniture pictured above has been played with by all five of my grandchildren.  The little dresser was hand made by a friend of ours.  He used wood from a barn over 100 years old that had been torn down.  At the time my oldest grandson was two years old.  I remember that he walked up to the little dresser that was just his size and asked, "Did you get that for me?"  I purchased the little doll bed from a co-worker from Hillsboro, OH.  I used an old feather ticking pillow for the "mattress" and put a little handmade quilt over it.  The doll is also a precious collectible.  When my grandmother passed away, she had the little porcelain doll head and hands tucked in a box in a drawer.  I am sure she intended to make it into a doll but never got around to it.  I had a friend with sewing talents make it into the doll that I will always treasure.  Mamaw loved making and restoring dolls.  She would buy old worn out dolls from garage sales and bring them home and wash their hair and bodies.  She would put little curlers in their hair and sew a fresh outfit of clothes for them.  As her final loving touch, she would name each doll.  I remember she had a little doll with a pink taffeta dress she had made sitting on the bed in her guest bedroom that had hair close to the color of mine.  She gave that doll my name and I never forgot how special that made me feel.  Mamaw brought down a well worn "Chatty Cathy" doll from her attuc that couldn't even talk any more and gave it to my daughter, Keri and told her that maybe she could restore it someday.  My last doll was a "Tiny Tears" doll that I received when I was ten years old.  I loved that doll because it would drink, cry and wet.  After I had my own children, I couldn't figure out why that delighted me so much.  I played with that doll until I had worn out the clothes that came with it.  Mamaw lovingly took the doll home with her and when she brought it back to me, it had a new outfit complete with panties and bonnet.  To this day, I think of Mamaw when I see a worn doll.  Mamaw shared her love through those old dolls.  I remember that she would also make apple head dolls.  She would carefully peel an apple and carve out a face in the apple.  She would put the apple on a stick and set it up on the mantle behind the pot bellied wood stove in her living room to dry.  After a few weeks, the apple head would dry and shrivle up into a wrinkled little face.  She would then take a wire coat hanger and form the basis for a body and then she would go upstairs to her sewing room and make it a perfectly wonderful outfit.  I would sit for hours and watch Mamaw work on those dolls.  Sometimes she would give me little projects to help with.  To this day, I have many dolls in my home.  They are  little memories of my grandma.