When I was very young - I think up to being about 5 years old I did not own any 'real' dolls. Just knitted and stuffed woollen or cotton dolls, sometimes with faces made of pressed paper pulp.
Of course there were porcelain and dolls of other materials but I only saw them at toy shops or at the homes friends that came from a wealthy family.
Later a Dutch factory that had gone out of business during WWII started producing polyethylene dolls. The brand was called: Wildebras (Tom Boy).
Dolls like these were popular when I was a child in the 1950's. I think it must have been about 1957 or so just after my little brother was born that my parents gave me my very own Wildebras doll - I named her Liesje (from Elisabeth), because I thought that was a sweet sounding name.
Liesje became my companion at night, in bed. OK, in my previous post I wrote that my dolls were in bed with me next to my pillow, but Liesje wasn't. She was cuddled up with me under the sheets and blankets. She was a great comfort to me by just being there.
I didn't play with my dolls like other girls did. I was too busy being outside in the open air, playing with my friends in the rural area that I grew up in.
I remember the cold small bedroom I slept in, alone and dark at night, Liesje being there with me. She was not warm - I still can remember how she smelled; that typical plastic smell she had and that only left her for a while after I bathed her and washed her face with soap.
Her face was always more or less cool and she always remained aloof, cool, a bit like my mother. She comforted me nonetheless if I was lonely or punished. I could hold her close and hug her. Put my cheek against hers.
We did not grow up in a warm, safe or secure family home. Liesje was there to comfort me at night if I needed her.
She stayed with me for a long, long time. I kept her until I was about 20 years old like I had seen a friend of my mother do when I was young. She had a doll that was over 20 years old and I was awed by that. I vowed that I would also keep my Liesje that long. And that's what I did.
Finally I gave her away as a present to a neighbour's granddaughter who was staying with her grandma overnight. It was almost like an impulse, it all went suddenly and swiftly. Somehow I thought g she might enjoy her more and actually play with her again.
I think I regretted it afterwards. In fact I'm sure I did because I adopted the small doll on the picture that is sitting down in the green flowered dress with the necklace about 10 years ago at a fair. Having a doll like Liesje again felt like coming home. She was smaller than my original Liesje, but I still liked her very much.
Now, at the same car trunk junk sale that I told you about in my previous post, I adopted two other naked, battered and dirty dolls that I cleaned up and clothed again. One had a severed arm that I fixed. I adopted the large doll now wearing the brown dress together with the doll now wearing the blue trousers and blue and white jacket.
She's standing next to the large doll sitting down and she is exactly the same size that Liesje was. Only this one has brown eyes, whereas my original doll had blue eyes. I like her this way. And I feel some of the old familiar love well up again towards my new Liesje doll.
True, she is not as gorgeous as the gadco doll I wrote about yesterday. But she is as close to my own beloved Liesje as I can get. And that's enough for me! She even smells the same way!
And the other dolls? Well, I'm sensing their personalities and getting to know them and they are welcome in my little -or rather extended- doll family!
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