Pink Mackaroon: December 2016

Usually my posts focus on life-size fashion but today's edition is on a much smaller scale! My grandmother passed down her treasured childhood doll to me a few years ago and I decided that it was time to share this darling with you all. Here is her story, told in my grandmother's own words.

I think I was around 7 years old and we lived at 2535 Warren St. Covington, Ky. She was a Christmas gift. My parents and grandparents always opened their gifts on Christmas Eve when I was SUPPOSE TO BE sleeping but it was hard to sleep so often I crept down the stairs part way to take a peak. They were always around the dining room table opening gifts and the gifts under the tree were all mine as I was an only child for 10 years.They told me Santa brought them and I always left hot chocolate and cookies on the breakfast nook table for Santa. Of course he always ate them.

Well she was a treasured doll for me. I may have gotten the doll bunk beds that year also. Anyway, she has her original dress and apron on. We had to replace the shoes and she had pig tails but her hair got so bad over the years we had to get her a new wig.l I always tried to take good care of her. I had the doll clothes wardrobe which you or your mom must have. It came with only 3 wooden hangers built in and over time I had more clothes which I had made and some were bought, but no way to hang them up.

My Grandpa Gordan Wesley Setty ran a bicycle store (Wesley Supply Store) at 1730 E. 5th St. Dayton, Ohio and I often watched him put wire through the hole in long rubber tubing for tricycle, wagon and baby buggy tires. He cut the ends and pressed them together on a machine which he had invented and made up for that use. He kept big rolls of wire hanging in his shop so one day when I was visiting my grandparents I asked Grandpa if he could make me some clothes hangers for my doll clothes. He looked at a full size hanger and then at the wooden ones and the clothes and came up with doll size clothes hangers for me.

Then Grandma said "You know those might just sell in the store" so he made up several more and painted a sign which said "Shirley Ann Doll Clothes Hangers." It was red and blue. I can't remember the price but it was something like 3 for 5 cents I think. He put them in the front window of his store and sure enough they went over very well. I still have the original sign at home in Ohio and copies of the hangers in my genealogy book.

Grandpa was very inventive and made several tools like spoke tighteners (for bicycle wheels) and hand tools needed in his business.