Sharing Nonnie's dolls

My mother and her brother were wards of the State and placed in foster homes when she was about five. She never told us any of this until a year before her death. Her mother was evidently marginally mentally retarded and married off to an older man who was an inventor and a man of the world. My grandmother was a good mother and loved her children but when her husband died of syphilis, the State decided that she was incapable of caring for her two small children, so she was sent to an institution and her children to foster homes. This was during the Depression and most families who took foster children did so in order to make a bit more money. My mother and her brother were often treated like servants and the families were often members of fringe fanatical churches.



Despite her twisted, unsettled youth, my mother did well. She established family traditions for us and with my father, provided us with a stable secure home. We were like any other fifties family. I think the hallmark of her parenting ability was to make us think that she loved us all equally.

After we were out of the house my parents traveled. My mother collected dolls from all over the world. For this mother's day Lauren and I are sharing her dolls by displaying them at the the Coeur d'Alene Library. It was fun setting them up and it turned out to be a good homeschool project. We had to look up the location of New Caledonia. We had to decide how to group them. They provoked a discussion about race, culture, geography and mothering. My favorite is the very primitive doll from the San Blas Islands. Lauren's favorite is the Queen Elizabeth doll from England (of course.)



Thanks for letting us share them with you.