CAN THIS DOLL BE SAVED?

It was August 1997. We were having a family reunion at our house in Lewiston. Our young grandchildren were there. Douglas was two and a half while Annie was 21 months. Suddenly Cindy, Annie's mom, appeared beside me in the kitchen.

"There's an old doll in the basement and Annie wanted to play with it so I put it where she can't get it," she said.

"There are no old dolls down there," I replied, "and nothing that Annie shouldn't play with."

"This looks like a very old doll," said Cindy, accentuating the "very old." "I just know Annie shouldn't play with it."

As soon as I could steal away from meal prep, I went to the rec room to see what Cindy was talking about, and there, up where little hands could not reach her, was Mopsy, the rag doll my mother made for me when I was not much older than Annie. For a few moments, the words "very old doll" rang in my ears. All of a sudden I saw my precious muslin doll through the eyes of someone else, and she looked old – "very old" indeed! The unspoken question was, Where does this leave me?

All of a sudden as I stood there, I was again three years old. "It's about time for your nap," my mother was saying. "I can read you a story – or we can work on your doll. What would you like to do?" I chose work on the doll, and that day Mother embroidered one of the doll's eyes. That this flat piece of cloth would develop into a doll I could hardly imagine. I'm sure my mother knew she was making a memory as much as a doll. My mother was like that.

As Mother was finishing the doll, Aunt Naomi came to visit Grandma Portfors, my maternal grandmother who lived just a block from us. Now, Aunt Nome, as we called her, was Grandma's aunt – Grandma's mother's much-younger sister. So, Aunt Nome was my mother's great-aunt, and my great-great-aunt – and we couldn't have asked for a better aunt. She was a kindly, unselfish individual with a good sense of humor – a good example of a "retro" woman.

Anyway, back to the doll. I think Mother wasn't too pleased with the way she turned out, especially her hair. She knew she hadn't gotten it just right. I took one look at the doll and named her "Mopsy." Mother was ready to be finished with the project, but Aunt Nome said a doll without clothes wasn't much good, and she set about to make Mopsy a wardrobe – all by hand without benefit of pattern, old-fashioned, and utterly charming. She made underpants, a nightgown and matching blanket, and a dress.

Well, I grew up and Mopsy continued to live at Mother's house. Sometime in my 20s I touched her and found her innards – foam bits – had turned hard and crunchy. Mother said we should re-stuff her. It didn't happen. As I stood in my basement in 1997, my mother having passed just months earlier, I sadly thought that I should be taking better care of Mopsy, but more years would pass before I would step up to it. That day came on a recent Saturday.

It was a lovely day, so I took Mopsy to the back stoop. I had my seam ripper and a plastic sack. It was necessary to remove her arms and legs from her body. Working carefully with the ripper, I opened seams and pulled the awful old yellow sand – the disintegrated foam – from the parts. The foam had caused a blotchy yellowing of her muslin body and underpants.

Once she was reduced to her basic parts, I washed them gently by hand. When the parts were dry, I then re-stuffed them lightly with polyester fiberfill, being careful not to stress her aging seams. Once her parts were stuffed, I carefully stitched the openings and re-attached her arms and legs.

Her hair was a particular challenge. Originally cotton rug yarn, it did not survive the washing process and I had to carefully snip it off. I studied online instructions as well as every sock and cloth doll pattern I owned before selecting a method and getting on with it. Now Mopsy's hair is Red Heart acrylic 4-ply yarn.

I could have just tossed her away, you know, but I couldn't bear to do so. For years I have cherished the desire to be a maker of sock and cloth dolls. The making of Mopsy inspired me all those years ago and her renewal marks the first of my own efforts.