My Collections

Many people collect various items such as coins, stamps, dolls, shot glasses, plates, and spoons. Do what people collect reflect on their personalities? Or do what people collect have no indication of their interests at all and are just random? I tried collecting international stamps when I worked at the Liahona, the church’s international magazine and we got stamps from all over the world. It didn’t interest me and I have a box full of stamps from all over the world. Ed has collected coins since he was a boy, and shares his interest in coins with Athena and several of our grandchildren, but the coins leave me cold.

I have been interested in collecting Madame Alexander dolls since I received my first one at age seven. It was the "Beth" doll from Little Women (My mother had named me after Beth in Little Women). I received a doll from Denmark as a teen and that increased my interest in dolls to not just Madame Alexander dolls, but dolls of all nationals also.

I’ve increased my collection of dolls throughout the years, adding dolls from where we have lived and where others have lived in the world. I’ve added quite a few Madame Alexander dolls, especially the smaller dolls from the various nations. I’ve a few of the storybook dolls, including Cinderella and Snow White and even a few historic dolls, Romeo and Juliet, Napoleon and Josephine, Christopher Columbus and Queen Isabella. I have the Little Women dolls, Marmie, Amy, Jo, Beth, & Meg and some other characters. Ed has insisted I keep all the boxes that go with the dolls as they increase their value.

Since we’ve been in the military and traveled all over the world, I’ve collected many dolls from other countries, but the ones that I like the most are the ones with personal attachment; I love the southwestern Indian doll that I bought when we lived in El Paso that reminded me of El Paso’s rich Spanish/Indian heritage. Ed brought me an Alaskan Eskimo doll when he was in Alaska. The Greek dolls with their ethnic costumes Ed got in the Greek islands were special.

However, as my collection grew, the dolls that meant the most were the subgenre that became my “women at work” collection showing women all over the world doing work—the handmade Scottish doll that a British friend sent me of a woman mending fishing nets; the handmade Italian doll that an Italian sister made showing a woman knitting; a Korean doll dancing in an ethnic costume with a fan; the authentic French wooden Provence dolls of women selling bread, gathering flowers, and doing other domestic tasks. The Vietnamese doll balancing her barrels; the African doll with the jug on her head; the Israeli woman with her basket on her hip.

These were the dolls that meant the most to me and that I had the hardest time locating. They weren’t found in the tourist markets or on the internet; usually they were given me or I located them through friends. Sometimes I found one at The Deseret Industries or the Good Will store or a garage sale—they seldom were valuable in monetary terms.

Their value to me was in what they represented—the worth of a woman’s work, wherever she is, whatever she does.