'D' is for Dolls . . .

"And Ruth the Moabitess said unto Naomi,

Let me now go to the field,

and glean ears of corn after him

In whose sight I shall find grace.

And she said unto her, Go, my daughter."

Ruth 2:2  KJV


"D" is for 'Dolls.' Yes, you read that right, dolls, and I can tell you about Quaker Dolls . . . and I don't mean the 'quiet dolls' - the ones made from fabric or hankies, or do I?

For many years various groups of ladies from Mooresville Friends Meeting would paint these ceramic Quaker Dolls. These dolls were given to new babies born into the Meeting - with the presentations made during Meeting for worship. The girls received a girl and the boys a boy. They were also made and sold at our annual Bazaar - as individuals or in pairs, they were quite popular.

 

My Quaker Dolls

I received my Quaker Dolls for my birthday in October 1984 - the first year I went to the Mooresville Friends Bazaar. I was able to pick out the pair that I wanted. I picked a 'fancy' couple - that is to say that the girls dress & apron had a bit of added decoration to it. Give me a break, I wasn't 'Quaker' then - I had only been attending Meeting for Worship for three months at the time. The paint has gotten a bit chipped over the years, may have to see what paints I might have that I could use to touch them up a bit, or I just might leave them alone.

 

The dolls are ceramic, and stand only about 5 inches tall. We would take the mold to one of the local ceramic shops to have the dolls poured. When they were ready someone would pick them up and clean them and then return them to the ceramic shop to be fired. Once they had been fired than they were ready to be painted. I do remember times when I first started helping with the dolls that we would meet as a group, not a very large group, in the basement and spend several hours painting the dolls. Some Friends had certain parts that they were good at, and that's the part or parts they would paint. Only a few were good at painting the faces which took very steady hands to do. Most of the pairs were painted and then had a protective matt spray coating put on them, very few were fired a second time with a 'glossy' finish.


Great-Aunt Sylvia's
Quaker Dolls

Sad to say that the last time I went to the ceramic shop to order some more dolls, I found that the shop had gone out of business. They had our mold, as the owner kept telling me that the mold was just too wet for me to transport, so I would need to leave it with her. So our mold was gone. I don't think that anyone ever looked to order a new one.

 

This was one of those fun 'ministries' within the Meeting that I really enjoyed working on - as I had done ceramics previously. I miss not working on the dolls, but it was beginning to really mess with my 'dust' allergy so cleaning them was getting hard to do.



Quaker couple
"Read to us, please"

Now that was the end of what I was going to write about Dolls, until this last Sunday while I was at Meeting and happened to go into our Library . . . and there they sat, she in the tiny rocking chair on the floor in front of the shelves and he up high on a shelf of reference books for young adults. I did move him down to the rocking chair with her, as I've seen them sitting in it together a lot of times. Until I stopped to take their pictures, to share with you all here, I had never really looked at them very closely, I suppose because they were so close to the floor!

 

I have always thought they were a couple, a pair, that they went together . . . but they're not! She appears to have been made from a cream colored sock and he from cotton fabrics. OK, I did do a bit of investigation, and there is a tag in his hat saying he was handmade by . . . (a name that I'm not familiar with). But I find no tag on her at all, but expect that she was also handmade.

I'm very curious right now . . . where did this little couple come from and what is their history? I will have to be asking questions of members of the Meeting to find out. I've just gotta know.

 

Quaker couple as I
found them
in the Library

This little couple is often picked up and given some loves by the Wee Friends and Young Friends and visitors to my Meeting. Surprised that my now 14 month old granddaughter hasn't yet found these dolls and given them some of her loves! Expect that will happen soon, when she gets a bit more of a chance to start doing some roaming around on her own.

So, yes, 'D' is for dolls . . . the ceramic Quaker dolls that were a ministry here at Mooresville Friends and the soft fabric Quaker dolls that keep an eye on our Meeting's Library.

 

 

*Great-Aunt Sylvia was my husband's great-aunt, who was a member of Mooresville Friends Meeting and died in early October 2010, just two months short of 102 years of age.