And I have been thinking about my old dollhouse. It was the 50s. It was probably tin, it bent easily when played with. It was a 2 story thing, arranged as usual, with a kitchen, a living room, two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. Kind of like this one.... https://images.app.goo.gl/yUa8en9rvNEXMotC9
I had a mishmash of odd furniture, some I made, mostly plastic furniture. I don't have the dollhouse, but I do have a little box with some of the furniture. There used to be a refrigerator but it got broken beyond repair. A bathroom sink, too, that who knows where it went. And a little sewing machine that you could crank and it would go up and down! I didn't keep many of my childhood toys, but I loved that doll house, but, like most of my other toys, it was given away without my consent when my mom thought I wasn't playing with it any more. This stuff must have been hidden somehow, because for some reason, I still have it, along with my "family"...
I never thought that my dollhouse family was odd. It didn't have a Mom and Dad and Big Brother and Little Sister like the families that you can get for dollhouses. I remember one time asking my mom about my doll house family and she didn't remember anything about the doll house, much less the family. I just wondered why nobody ever got me an actual family for the dollhouse. All I had were these little porcelain dolls. I don't even know how I got them, and my mom didn't remember either. Who knows.
So my family was this strange assortment. The Cowboy, The Uncle, and the orphans. I remember playing that these poor neglected children lived with the Cowboy and The Uncle. I don't know what kind of a place they were running... there was nothing sinister in my play, I just played with what I had. They were precious to me, and as you can see, well played with.
I did some research and found out that the cowboy was from a Cowboy and Indians set, and The Uncle was actually someone's groom. The kids were supposedly quite common, they were made in Japan. I don't remember naming them, they were just The Orphans.
Now the little box sits in Liv's doll house which is waiting for them to move into an actual house instead of an apartment. Oh well. Liv's dollhouse family was bears, and I made a Goldilocks clothespin doll who for some reason now has no clothes that I can find, and there are only a couple bears left. So I got her an new family for the house, and her play stuff is in a file box. So now they need a house, and we don't need a pandemic so we can go to that new house and deliver this house.
This little girl is about 2 1/4 inches tall. I really would like to remember where she came from, but I probably will never know.
Maybe why I don't throw things away easily has something to do with my mom's attitude. I remember my aunt, after dinner, would whisk your plate away the minute you put down your fork, whether or not you had food on the plate. I always felt like my mom too was lingering by my toys, and would grab them if she thought I might have lost interest. I don't know how my dollhouse toys survived. They must have been hidden. I found out that my original-in-the-box Barbie had been given away when I visited the neighbors and found her brushing Barbie's hair, which, if you remember the original Barbie, was NOT intended to be brushed. I remember crying for days. So after that, I guarded my stuff. I guess I'm still guarding it. I guess that's also why I have a bookcase full of my kids' toys, waiting for grandkids who can't come.
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