My Passion for Betsy McCall Paper Dolls

You kids know by now about my infatuation with dolls when I was small, but I also loved paper dolls and still do.  I would find old Sears & Roebuck catalogs and cut out the men, women and children to make up my paper doll families.  I kept them safely put away under my bed in a shoebox, and only took them out when cousins didn't come over to visit.  I would cut out furniture, dishes and kitchen appliances--anything pretty to make up my paper doll playhouses.  Sometimes I would make my own paper doll furniture out of construction paper.  This was truly one of my favorite past-times except for playing with jacks and shooting marbles in the back yard.

I have a short story to interject here about playing jacks.  I accidently left one of those metal jacks on the floor one day and my poor Grandma stepped on it--she always went barefoot around the house.  She was very upset with me over that and declared it severely damaged her heel.  I still cringe to this day thinking about the pain she must have endured over that.  She actually did limp around for many days afterwards.  I really felt bad about it but I think I felt worse after the tongue-lashing she gave me!  Believe me--I was very careful about playing with jacks after that.  I played marbles too and traded for prettier marbles with kids at school.  I always either had bubble gum or marbles in my jean's pockets.  I kept my marbles in a large coffee can at home.  Now you know where I kept my marbles!  (No laughing out loud here!)



I was always blowing bubbles!
This wasn't our house--I don't know
where it was taken.

 
Paper dolls were much safer to play with and it was my passion.  Then one day around 1951, I discovered the McCall's Magazine and in each monthly issue was the cutest paper doll called Betsy McCall.  Each month there was a new page of her featured in her little undershirt and panties (oh dear!); Betsy McCall goes to the country; Betsy McCall goes shopping; Betsy McCall goes to school; etc.  What a delight when I disovered Betsy McCall.  No only did each page have the cutest clothes with little white tabs to fold over and cover her "undies", it also held accessories, such as her own little dolls, hats, chickens, pets, schoolbooks--whatever the topic was for that month.  It was absolutely the most adorable paper doll I had ever seen!  I couldn't wait for the next issue so I could see what Betsy was up to that month.  And later on McCalls introduced Barbara McCall, her cousin.  Each page would have a short story about what Betsy had planned for that day.

As I was searching the Internet for Betsy McCall paper dolls before I began this writing, I found those 1950's issues of McCall's featuring the Betsy McCall paper doll.  If any of you readers have a little granddaughter or great-granddaughter who loves paper dolls (our Tristen is too full grown now for paper dolls and I don't think Bryce being a boy would care about them), you can actually print the pages on heavy bond paper and have your very own Betsy McCall paper dolls.  I am going print them just for me anyway!  You're never too old to play with paper dolls are you?