Hello Hello, hope you are all well and having a wonderful summer.
Today I want to share something that caught my eye at a county historical museum. For those of you who have visited these small museums, you know they usually contain lots of farm implements, old cars and trucks, antique furniture and housewares. Harland and I joke that the three items that will also be found are barbed wire collections, two-headed calves or pigs, and hair wreaths. Not sure exactly why, but we almost always see these items when we visit a county museum.
Anywho, on a recent road trip we stopped at the Barton County Historical Society Museum in Great Bend, Kansas.
While purusing the antique furniture, old dental and doctor implements, and wedding dress collection, I saw something that stopped me in my tracks: An entire room dedicated to vintage dolls.
Whoa….
Endless cases full of old dolls of every size from tiny frozen charlottes only a few inches high,
to this enormous bisque doll about 3 feet tall,
Most of the dolls were a foot to 18 inches high.
This one below needs to go to the orthodontist, poor thing:
This one in the light blue dress (below) is my favorite.
The doll below is wearing my favorite outfit. Looks like she’s ready for a trip in her suit and straw hat:
Most of the dolls were bisque (late 1800s) like the ones above, and a few were china heads (1850-1860s), below:
And then there was this sad one, below:
Her body and clothing appeared to be made entirely of felt. I have no idea how old she is,but she sure is cute.
My mom collects dolls and has a few bisques and china heads. I remember I used to love looking at them when I was a child, but we weren’t allowed to touch them, of course. As delicate as these are, it’s pretty amazing that any of them survived to make it into a museum.
Give a shout out if you or your ancestors have any dolls like these. Share your memories of them with us!
Have a great day!
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