My Recycled Life: Doll Doctoring

People who repair dolls are called doll doctors, and their businesses are called doll hospitals. I needed one because my mother left behind a collection of several dolls and toys from her childhood, ones that she’d kept and treasured all her life, until her dementia made their upkeep impossible and deterioration set in. I was left with the difficult decision to either trash, sell the parts or for somebody else to restore,  repair or keep. 

Doll collecting fluctuates in popularity, and right now the market is depressed. Any money put into repair is a risky investment I may not get back. For three of the dolls that has proved to be no problem. A Lone Ranger doll, made perhaps in 1937 and still in good condition, got quickly sold at an estate sale. Two little rag Dutch dolls have no need for repair, and are on display in a glass case in the living room. They haven’t sold yet but somebody somewhere will likely find them of interest.

Two beautiful antique baby-girl dolls, one blonde, one brunette, were crammed in plastic bags in the back of a cramped closet,  and were literally falling apart. I could’ve trashed them—perhaps given them a decent burial—but after attempts to sell the parts went nowhere, my heart said, restore them.

I searched online and found, in all of southern California, one woman who restores antique dolls and stuffed toys, and she’s been  putting the dolls (and one shabby stuffed toy) back together. Restoration of the blonde doll has been fairly simple. She’s a “composition” doll made of a material that predates plastic, and her parts are strung together like a marionette. New strings, some minor touch-up and cleaning, and she’s back to her old self.

Work on the brunette doll, made in Germany, is turning out more bittersweet. She’s got a bisque head and arms, but her kidskin body is stuffed with sawdust that’s pouring out her seams, and the leather is suffering dry rot. The doll doctor has been able to get the body stabilized, but she warns me, the doll will eventually need a whole new body, and that’s going to break my budget. The head, though, with its big brown eyes and little white teeth, and its wig of human hair, are all back together, and re-attached to the body and arms. This Curly Locks girl will be able to join her Dutch doll friends in the glass display case in the living room, until either I find a buyer or her repaired body gives out again, and I have to make another decision.