Small Attractions Collectors Share Favorites At Regional Show

To the uninitiated, the dolls on Marie Fleming’s shelves just sit there, glass-eyed and stiff.

To Fleming, they talk, they shift, they say: “I’m the one.”

“If it winks, I’m dead,” says Fleming, describing how she chooses a doll. “Hooked. I need to take that baby home and care for it.”

Oh you beautiful doll, you great big beautiful doll. From Googlies to Kewpies, they’re pouty and pretty, and perfectly still. But dolls speak to their owners, and at the Ag Trade Center this weekend, they may be talking to you.

Joann Ide heard her first one 23 years ago. Now she’s got a “modest collection” of about 200.

“It’s a very addictive hobby. I don’t recommend it for anyone,” says Ide with a laugh.

“It’s terrible. We call ourselves dollaholics,” says LaVonda Ircink.

Those feeling reckless can visit the Inland Empire Doll Collectors’ Association’s 13th Annual Show today and Sunday. Dolls from German antiques to Barbie will draw dealers and fans from Oregon to Montana.

Fleming will bring Tina, Becky and Sue, their circa 1865-1890 German bodies wrapped in baby blankets “face down so their eyes won’t fall out.”

Mary Elizabeth, Ide’s latest and favorite acquisition, will stay home.

Mary Elizabeth? “She just kind of told me that was her name. We get really silly over things like that. I get up in the morning and say, ‘Hello ladies.’ I do really dumb things like that.”

Today’s biennial doll and toy show also features Lub Dub, a Teddy bear donated to the pediatric cardiology patients at Sacred Heart Medical Center. The doll collectors also donate piles of dolls and toys to the Washington State Patrol, Spokane police and sheriff’s departments each year.

Ide, Fleming and Ircink also are members of the United Federated Doll Club, dedicated to collecting and philanthropy.

The Inland collectors (women and men) are ambitious, meeting monthly at Corbin Community Center for programs on specific dolls.

“It’s camaraderie, enlightening and the most fun I can have and still be this old,” says Fleming, 73.

The women say collecting is a hobby that ages with you - as your tastes change, so can your dolls. It’s also a hobby that takes over basements and spare bedrooms.

Fleming sews doll clothes and makes antique reproduction dolls in her home. Ircink developed a business, LaVonda’s Doll Repair, dedicated to them.

Work orders are currently backlogged a year. Parts are becoming impossible to find.

Ircink’s finest salvage was a doll with a quarter of her face missing. She spent almost two years repairing, sculpting and repainting the face until “you couldn’t tell it had been fixed.”

As their worth has increased, dolls have disappeared from garage sales. Collectors use a doll Blue Book, doll encyclopedias and local experts to identify models costing $1,000 to $100,000.

Collections range from plastic dollies to Kewpies (with the telltale curl and wings on the back of the neck) to paper dolls.

Fleming’s favorite doll is an 8-inch J.D. Kestner doll, named after her favorite sister-in-law, Bonnie. The dolls’ eyebrows, teeth and mohair or human hair give them a distinct look.

Ide laughs delightedly at doll talk.

As co-chair of the show for the last decade, she looks forward to the socializing, displays and questions the show brings. Just don’t ask why she loves dolls.

“I’ve asked myself that many times. I wish I knew, but I don’t.” she says.

The dolls may know. But, for once, they’re not talking.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Three Color Photos

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Doll show “All Dolled Up,” the Inland Empire Doll Collectors’ Association show and sale, will be today and Sunday at the Spokane Ag Trade Center from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $3 for adults, $1 for kids 6 to 12.