Cloth Dolls and Me
Dolls have always held a special place in my heart. I had a doll crib in the corner of my bedroom until I went away to college. Since it was Santa who brought me a new dolly every year, my collection of inexpensive primarily composition dolls was not very large. In early Christmas snapshots, I see my first cloth doll. He was a simple 12 inch pancake type doll named Little Brown Koko
made for me by my Mother. Stories of his adventures were published monthly in the Household Magazine.During the time that Mother and I were reading the stories, the pattern to make this doll was offered. She made him as a Christmas gift and he remained a cherished part of my "collection" until he, sadly, fell apart many years later. If I had him today, I would probably try to repair the holes in his cotton clothes and reattach his arms. He was constructed in one piece, attached arms, appliqued clothing and black yarn French knots (lots of knots) for hair. He was stuffed with cotton. As I reflect on the past, I am somewhat surprised that living in the early 1940's in Southern Texas, I was given a little "Negro" boy doll.
It never occurred to me at the time that the ethnicity was different than my family. My parents never made much of it, and were very tolerant of all races. Society, however did make some impact since one day when I took a drink out of a "colored" drinking fountain, I thought it was a mistake. They rode in the back of the bus, went to different schools and were not "equal", but my brother and I grew up with very little of the prejudice of the times; and I played with a little brown cloth doll, whose story told of his adventures in the rural south. He and his family were portrayed speaking with a definite dialect of southern "Negroes."
Recently, I found a copy of the pattern on ebay and bought it. I will be making a new Little Brown Koko for my cloth doll collection.
The next cloth dolls I owned were sock dolls. During World War II, my mother, brother and I moved to Louisiana to be near my Grandpa while my Dad was away fighting the war. We lived in a duplex next to a wonderful lady who made dolls out of pastel socks. They were not regular sock dolls, because she made them in all colors. I seem to remember having two of them, one with pink skin and maroon yarn hair and the other lavender with purple yarn hair.
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