world as the baby of my family. My mother repeatedly told me how much my four older sisters adored their new baby and how they voted me into the family. Every month Mom and Dad held family council meetings in order to distribute everyone’s spending money, announce rule changes, and anything else important to the family. The meetings were complete with a president, vice-president and secretary who took notes in special books reserved only for family council details. Their gatherings were also an opportunity for my parents to demonstrate proper etiquette and Robert’s Rules of Order. At just such a meeting, the thirteen- year-old politely raised her hand and upon recognition began to speak. “Well, the rest of the girls and I have been talking and we’ve decided that we need another baby in this family. So, I make a motion that we do that, okay?”
Speechless and searching for a response, Mom and Dad just looked at each other.
Realizing her opportunity, the ten-year-old’s hand shot up and without waiting to be acknowledged, she blurted out, “I second the motion! Let’s have a baby! We need one! All in favor say 'Aye'!”
The enthusiastic chorus from the mouths of four girls, ages seven to fifteen, snapped my parents back into the moment, just in time for my dad to regain order, pound the gavel, and in a booming voice declare, “Your mother and I say NO! We do not need any more babies!” Including my mom in the veto stretched the truth just a bit, because honestly, my mother would have enjoyed having babies forever. Being a mother was her sole identity, and she wasn’t sure what to do with her empty arms.
In spite of the parental overruling, my sisters received their wish and I arrived a few months later, exactly eight years after my parents’ last baby.
Wonderful memories float through my mind about our years at home, together. Christmas, like so many other holidays, was especially magical. Each year I found a new doll under the tree, until my parents decided that I had outgrown such a childish tradition, even though I never really outgrew it!
Dad’s camera, continually poised to capture formal photos as well as any embarrassing moment, provided countless opportunities we all loved to relive and laugh about later. Some of my favorite pictures show all of us girls with new Easter dresses, sewn by Mom, and beautiful fresh-flower headbands, created by Dad, pinching our temples until they ached. No matter how much my head hurt, I loved feeling like a princess, offering my best smile for the camera, as I savored the sweet perfume of the flowers floating around my head.
Dad enjoyed showing off his ability with flowers anytime. Anything dealing with flowers, including teaching students as a professor of floriculture, building new gardens and speaking to garden clubs, occupied most of Dad’s life. A wife and five daughters were always proud to model his showy corsages and other creations. Dad’s snapshots, now housed in photo albums, still instantly transport me back to the happy memories of my sisters and the time we spent together as a family.
By the time I was ten years old, all of my sisters were gone from home and I missed them terribly. The house, once alive with girls’ giggling, arguing, and whispered secrets, became strangely silent and I was left alone with my gray-haired parents. School activities occupied me, while marriages and babies consumed my sisters. The age differences between me and the others never allowed real connection, no matter how much I yearned for it. I always wanted to be a part of their lives and to be included, but common ground was difficult for any of us to find. I so wanted them to see me as something other than their pesky “little sister.”
After graduating from high school and attending college, my adult life began at age nineteen when I married an amazingly talented, supportive man. He was ten years my senior and recently widowed. His daughter from a previous marriage was almost eleven years old at the time of our wedding. I was not much more than a child myself, yet I had no doubt about being a mother. It just didn’t appear to be that hard! After all, I had watched my mother survive raising five daughters, so I could surely help one little girl get through the next few years of growing up. I was lost in my exuberant fantasy of sewing for a daughter, teaching her about things that I enjoyed and listening to her discoveries about life. I was certain she would love me and everything I wanted to teach her.
Six days before my twenty-second birthday I gave birth to our son, the true light of my life. From the instant that he came into this world, I was in love. Only an occasional moment during his childhood and life at home caused me self-doubt about parenting. Raising a little boy proved to be a challenge from time to time, as my only frame of reference came from living around girls. On the other hand, being a step-parent proved to be a monumental challenge as I found replacing my stepdaughter’s mother was not well received much of the time. Overcoming preconceived notions about wicked stepmothers, purported in books and by not-so-well-meaning relatives, added to the challenge of successful step-parenting. In spite of the ups and downs, we all survived our first ten years together. When my stepdaughter left for college, I believed that I had passed through the most difficult season of my life. Oh, the blissful ignorance of youth!
In addition to being a wife and mother, I have always been an enthusiastic life-long student and teacher. Whatever I learned, I eventually taught—a passion I discovered at age sixteen when I began teaching piano lessons on the spinet in my bedroom. I loved teaching as well as performing. Watching and listening to my students as they progressed from beginners to confident musicians, thrilled me. As a performer I learned very complex compositions that I played alone or in ensemble with a partner. Sometimes we enjoyed the challenge of four hands on one piano and other times, performed on two beautiful concert grands. Early in my life I realized that music brought me comfort, yet also diffused intense emotions. Anger or sadness could send me straight to the bench to play until the disagreeable feelings dissolved. And then it would happen…JOY… soul-joy… and I remembered the real reason for my music.
It was mine and I loved it!
I found the art of decorative painting when my son was a toddler. Once a week my mother eagerly spent time with him, allowing me a couple of hours for myself. Through the use of drawn patterns I studied the way shadow and light as well as tints, tones and shades of color could create objects with dimension. Occasionally I would even try to draw something myself, although my inner critic rarely approved. After several years of honing my skills in classes, my friends asked me to teach them and my passion for teaghing was once again fueled as I loved watching people discover joy and satisfaction in the painting process.
Dolls occupied much of my life and imagination from the time I was a tiny girl. Learning to stitch simple blankets and doll clothes with my mother, ignited my love of sewing. Time simply evaporated when I sewed and dressed my collection of dolls. As my sewing skills developed, I sewed evermore elaborate dresses, including an entire wedding scene, for my fashion doll. All the hours of designing and pretending filled some of the emptiness left behind by my sisters. When they came home to visit, my sisters thought my creations were pretty silly until they saw how I designed and stitched my own wedding dress and those of my attendants, saving lots of money!
Many years later while perusing a catalog, I stumbled upon a book about making cloth dolls and a new idea was born: I could create dolls myself! I knew I could sew the clothing and accessories, but could I design the actual doll’s body, too? Seeking inspiration, my discovery of the new phenomena of online communities connected me to doll makers all over the world. I found limitless resources, as well as answers for my questions without ever leaving my desk.
Doll making evolved easily into teaching, first on the local level and then into a classroom without walls—the Internet. What a transforming experience—students all over the world learning from me without a physical classroom! My passion for teaching exploded and I built a thriving design business that further supported my classes. With help and encouragement from my husband, I created my own line of patterns and rubber stamps, and expanded my business from retail into wholesale. In early 1999, one year after developing my new business, in a casual conversation with an associate, she remarked that someone needed to write a book about a specific doll making technique. Intrigued, I began exploring the possibility of writing just such a book, enabling me to teach in a whole new way.
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