Roma's Doll Room

Back at the house Roma showed us her wonderful doll room. Then we settled into the dining nook. Roma and Carol had spent hours decorating the dining nook with dolls and paper dolls: it was truly a clubhouse for doll lovers! We began an afternoon of show and tell. Everyone had brought a doll or two to show.  Chris had a lovely 1950's Arranbee plastic doll in a pink dress, and had brought a Jan Mclean porcelain doll and a Tiny Betsy trunk set. Rene brought a Tiny Betsy and her Alex doll, which Roma had wanted to see.
Irene brought a Parian bisque doll, and a Native American cloth doll. Gloria brought her childhood doll, Polly Ponds, and her favorite doll, Victoria, an Alt, Beck, & Gottschalck. But while the dolls were lovely, and it was wonderful to see these dolls up close, the real highlight of the afternoon was the story telling, particularly from Gloria and Irene. It was as though we were listening to Scheherezade: both Irene and Gloria would have lasted a lot longer than 1001 nights had they been talking to us!

Irene has been collecting dolls for years, and, until she met Gloria 10 years ago, she'd never paid above $50 for a doll. Irene has been learning a lot about dolls over the years from Gloria, but she herself seems to be a well-trained shopper with an excellent eye. She told a story about acquiring a box of dolls at an auction.

Two Martha Chase Dolls for $25!

Something may look like a box of junk to most people, but to a doll hunter, that little leg sticking out means a doll. That's what Irene saw in an auction area.  She knew she couldn't spend the whole day there waiting for the box to be auctioned, and besides, she didn't want to let others know how interested she was, so she walked right past that interesting box. The next day, the day of the auction, she sent her mother in to keep on eye on things. When Irene came in to check, her mother suggested that they ask to have the box sent up, which would bring the lot up within the hour. But Irene had spotted someone who has more money than she does, and who often outbids her. She didn't know whether that person had spotted the box. When she left the auction area, Irene told her mom to have the box sent up. Irene's mom did so and did the bidding, because Irene didn't want the auctioneer or the other bidder to know how eager she was.  Irene's mother had the box sent up, the auctioneer peeked into it, said, "A box of toys, no, dolls. Do I hear $100?" Silence. "$75?" Silence. "Hey, somebody asked for this box. $50?" Irene's mother shook her head no. "$25?" She nodded yes. "Do I hear $30? No? Sold for $25. Let's get it out of here."

And that's how, for $25, Irene acquired a box containing, among other things, two Martha Chase dolls.

Sharing

Gloria showed us some of her very unusual, very beautiful, very old dolls. One is a small French doll that she found and negotiated for at a doll show.  She showed the doll to Irene, then purchased her from the dealer, whom she knew, and put her on layaway. When the doll arrived, the face was right, but Gloria was certain that the body and the dress were not the same. Irene confirmed this, but Gloria had no proof. So Gloria taught this lesson: bring your camera along. And, when you put an antique doll on layaway, make sure you have proof of exactly what she looked like when you first saw her.

Nobody really wanted to interrupt for supper, and there was tons of deli left, so Ed went down cellar and brought up a pot of his truly wonderful chicken soup, which Mark describes as "the food of the gods", and we had an excellent meal.  Finally, we all settled down to sleep.  During the night Gloria went out to her car for a moment to fetch something, and forgot she was in a city: people lock their doors. Gloria got locked out of the house! She didn't want to disturb people, and so remained in the car as long as she could, and got very chilled. We all felt terrible! Gloria is more than welcome to wake any and all of us in the middle of the night whenever she needs to.

Carol came over the next morning to visit and to say goodbye. Later in the morning the rest of us headed off to Rochester in a convoy.

The Strong Museum

The Strong Museum's founder, Margaret Strong, was the daughter of two people whose families had both had great faith in their friend George Eastman:  when she died, she was the single largest individual stockholder in Eastman Kodak.  She also had no immediate family left, and had cultivated a lifelong love of collecting. Dolls were a specialty. The result: when she died, she left a massive doll collection and enough money to build a museum around it. The Strong Museum itself is a wonderful children's museum, but the second floor doll section, which is filled with case after case of Margaret Strong's dolls, seems to be mostly an adult place on the weekend. We walked from case to case, looking at doll after doll, choosing our favorites. They're all labeled now, but hadn't been the first time Irene and Gloria had come to visit, and Gloria had had to conduct a personal tour. The labels now apparently aren't perfect either:
I asked Gloria about an African doll in African costume that was labeled "Jumeau?", and she explained that it wasn't a Jumeau, why people thought it was a Jumeau, why they were wrong, and what it really was.

Roma had photocopied an article from a doll magazine on identifying antique dolls by their faces. Gloria spotted it and used the photos to illustrate why she likes German dolls better than French ones: the eyebrows, even on the best quality French dolls, she points out, are often carelessly painted. Great detail is paid to one eyebrow, with the other one done sketchily, a mistake the German doll artists did not make. So on Sunday we went up and down the rows of spectacularly beautiful French dolls, staring intently at their eyebrows!

Future Plans!

We spent several hours in the doll room, and then had lunch. It was Roma's birthday, and Ed wanted some time with her to himself. Mark and Rene had to start the long trip home, and so the party broke up. But everyone thought it had been far too short. So new plans are in the making. We're all looking forward to visiting Gloria and Irene this summer, and saving our pennies to go together to UFDC in New Orleans in 2003, where we hope to meet up with our About.com guide, Denise, as well, and with other About Forum members. Ed and Mark want to come, too: Ed wants to learn Creole cooking. Mark wants to eat Creole cooking and hear New Orleans jazz.

Gloria says, "Well, the excitement was almost more than I could stand and when we pulled in the driveway and RomaMay came out, it felt like a member of my own family. I felt that close to her. I cherish the fact that we all kind of went against the grain and took a chance on luck or the gift that was in store for us."

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