More than 50 years ago, my great-great Uncle Charlie built a
beautiful set of wooden doll bunk beds as a gift for my aunt. They stacked
perfectly, one on top of the other, sturdy yet delicate at the same time,
little spindles on each side, to be able to peek at the baby dolls sleeping
inside.
My grandmother made linens for the bed – vinyl mattresses
and pillows with fitted sheets and pillowcases, all tied together by matching
quilts, little white rosebuds gracing the clean white background.
Once my aunt outgrew them, I imagine they must have been
lovingly stored in a safe place, because all of my earliest memories of playing
in my room include those very same doll beds. I tucked my babies in under the
hand-made bedding and watched as they were moved up to my parents attic when I
thought I was too old to play with dolls any longer.
They made their way out of that attic and into my living
room many years later, as I watched my firstborn daughter and her younger
sister play with them. Then, when we were preparing to stage our little starter
house to sell and move to a larger house, we moved them again. Our “bonus
baby”, born quite a few years after her big sisters, was still too little to
play with them (and would have, in fact, tried to climb IN them, I’m sure).
Fast forward to Christmas 2015. I thought they would make
the perfect gift for our four year old and headed to the basement, filled to
the brim with all of the boxes and old furniture that had been in our storage
unit while we sold our old house. They were nowhere to be found. I had my
parents look in their attic, thinking I may have asked them to store them so
they wouldn’t get banged up during two moves, once to the storage unit and then
again to the new house. I was disappointed when we discovered they weren’t
there either. And I was nearly devastated when they weren’t in the only other
place I could imagine I would have sent them – to my brother’s house for his
girls to enjoy.
Many times over the past few months, when I would think of
them, I would get a sick feeling in my stomach, aching to know where they could
be, knowing I would never have given them to anyone outside of the family. As
our little girl’s fifth birthday approached, I so wished we could give them to
her. I even went as far as researching new doll beds, but never actually bought
one because they paled in comparison to the ones passed down through my family.
Last Saturday, my husband left to help his mom put some
things into her attic. He had been home for several hours when he said he needed
help getting something out of the van. I followed him out to the driveway, he
opened the back of the van and I saw the doll beds. I burst into tears and
looked at him in confusion. We had apparently stored them in his mother’s attic
before we moved, but neither one of us remembered it.
I am so thrilled to be able to give this precious toy to our
little girl for her fifth birthday. She won’t understand it now, but I hope
that someday she appreciates the history and love behind these beds that hold
more than baby dolls. They hold the memories of three generations of girls - hours
of happiness, playtime and opportunities to develop a nurturing spirit. Here’s
hoping the next generation will have a chance to be similarly blessed – as long
as we remember which attic they are stored in next time!
