Never used nowadays lately but had to look it up to be sure I spelled it correctly.
While in Ohio this past weekend, I was helping sort through some toys in the playroom. Matchbox cars here, a duffel bag of puppets, strollers and baby dolls and a whole tub of action figures like Batman and Star Wars light sabers. A box of wooden blocks.
The grandchildren are growing up and many of the younger toys aren’t being played with and room needs to be made for new ventures.
These Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls were gifts from Great Aunt Bobbie when Anna(9) was born. They looked exactly the same way they have smiled at me for all these years. No change in expression. Just grinning. They looked almost brand new.
I took them upstairs and set them up in my father’s old oak rocker which is now in Mark’s office. They didn’t object to being photographed. I started thinking about rag dolls and how they aren’t trendy and I wondered if people are still buying them. These are lovingly handmade in Kansas City and I think of them as classics. Nostalgia sets in.
But then I had a Raggedy Ann book when I was little and I think she was more popular in the 50’s. I see lists of patterns for sewing them and the first Raggedy Ann doll was created in 1915. Raggedy Ann is based upon the author Johnny Gruelle’s character of his book. They are still being manufactured today.
WIKIPEDIA says
“Gruelle’s home town, Arcola, Illinois, is the former home of the annual Raggedy Ann & Andy Festival and the Raggedy Ann and Andy Museum. The museum was closed and the festival discontinued in 2009. Some of the museum’s contents were donated to the Strong National Museum of Play” (Although the museum closed in 2009 there is a website from 2007- there’s a great photo of an early Raggedy Ann doll.)
Seems American Girls are at the top of wish lists and I just started thinking about what’s popular in different decades for doll play.
