mamculuna | (no subject)

When I was five, my mother made for me the most gorgeous, wonderful wardrobe for a doll that any doll has ever had. Barbie, eat your heart out. This doll, Caroline, was about two feet high, and my mother bought a trunk for her clothes, the kind of trunk people must have taken on steamers and trains, that opened up to have a rod to hang clothes from and drawers. My doll had a suit trimmed in fur and an evening dress with a green velvet bodice and a spangled skirt. No one ever had such a doll. I still love to think of her skillful fingers, late at night, sewing the clothes out of scraps (we were perennially poor, and in that time, in 1947, poorer than usual, living in a crummy apartment in a new, bleak town, where we were all lonely for the home we'd left behind).

Amazingly, the message was not that women should be dolls, or that clothes were all and everything--what I learned from that doll was that miracles of beauty and imagination can happen. I learned that craft and dreams can create a wonder that money can't buy. And of course, that my mother loved me that much.

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I teared up reading that. Just lovely.

Happy mother's day!!

:):):)

What a beautiful story, mamcu! What a lovely and creative mother you had. Thank you for sharing with us :)

Glad you liked it--she really was wonderful in many ways.

Good to remember.

Beautiful.

My mother did something like that for me when I was about nine. My doll was also named Penny! but she was smaller -- maybe about six or eight inches high? and she was a "preteen" girl (like I was) rather than a Barbie sort. Mom bought me the doll for Christmas, and I think she was disappointed with the clothes Penny came with -- they were cheap and maybe not so modest or something -- so she made an entire wardrobe, and wrapped the whole thing up together for me.

What a neat coincidence! Yes, my Penny was a pre-teen, not a glamour girl. I wonder if moms still make doll clothes--I had boys, and made them some stuffed animals when they were fairly small, but they didn't have dolls.

Oh, how cool is that? What a lovely, lovely memory.

Thanks. It really is.

That is such a wonderful memory to have. I'm sure you treasure it like you treasured that doll.

I do, indeed. We had some rougher times later in life, when I was a teenager, but all her life she liked to make beautiful things.

That's beautiful, very beautiful.

You are five years up on me then.

I may be five years older than God!

Silly! *L*

What a great story. I'd like to hear more of those stories some time soon.

Sure! Although this is one of the best. Your mom was only 2 then, and I expect she got a stuffed animal that Christmas, but she'll remember a later Christmas when Mimi made us both dolls with fur capes and pearl necklaces.

Thanks! Beautiful

How beautiful. :) I'd love to be able to see this doll.

I'm a little late, but I hope you had a happy mother's day!

Thanks! How kind. She's just a memory doll now, but a wonderful one.

Your icon is beautiful.

Edited 2008-05-12 12:38 (UTC)

Oh, thank you! It's an illustration by Edmund Dulac (one of my favourites) for the fairy tale, The Green Serpent by Madame Catherine d'Aulnoy. The queen is embracing her daughter. I like to use it for when I thank people, but it is just as appropriate in this instance, if not more. :)

What a nice memory. My mother was like that too. I think she considered it one of the best parts of having children, having imaginative little people about to enjoy her creative surprises.
I wasn't much interested in human dolls (or indeed, in humans generally) , so she made little felt fish for my toy seal and animal costumes for me. The detail she put into these things was amazing. My frog costume had webbed foot spats and gloves, and painted ping-pong ball eyes on the hood. My dragon costume had a long tail and scales sewn in red yarn, the nightingale (my favourite fairy tale) had crepe paper feathers stuck on one by one.
At five I wasn't even three feet tall myself so, I guess I was the doll (or plush toy) she never had. Lucky me :)

How wonderful! I loved making costumes for my children but never did anything nearly that fantastic! Hope you have pictures of yourself and can post them, someday! The nightingale sounds especially beautiful.

this is the best mother's day post i've read. Usually this is not my favourite day to be reading LJ but yours has this quality of observation and appreciation to it that makes me think of "miracles of beauty and imagination".

Thanks, Rah! I was very blessed to have a long, if sometimes very difficult, relationship with my mother, but that doll summed up the very best of her (at least in relation to me--what Mother's Day should make us think about, I guess).

And thanks for saying that--it means quite a lot, coming from you.