Hayden resident makes cuddly pillows

Sometimes, when life closes one door, another door opens. At least this is what Hayden resident Lori White came to believe after the threat of a lawsuit threatened to end a successful business and a violent earthquake shook the family home off its foundations.

Lori and her husband Dennis White, natives of Nebraska, lived for 30 years in the California town of Northridge, where they raised their family of four daughters and a son. During this time her husband worked in Hollywood, where he was sales manager for Capitol Records. Lori White had been a homemaker and was a grandmother when she made her unplanned venture into the business world 18 years ago.

She explains that it all began with something that seemed fairly insignificant. “I saw my granddaughter carrying around her ‘burp cloth’ and thought, ‘I can make something better.’ ”

Having always enjoyed sewing, she designed and made a special security blanket for her granddaughter. The size of a baby’s crib, the blanket had cotton flannel on one side and satin on the other. She used wide, satin ribbon to bind the edges.

After making that blanket, she began making them for family and friends. Her husband traveled a lot in his job, and White said sewing gave her something creative and useful with which to fill her time. One day Dennis looked at her handiwork and suggested, “Sell them.” It was an idea she at first rejected. But then, her daughters asked, “Why don’t we try?” Making and selling the blankets became a family operation with one daughter handling the business end.

From a small beginning, her successful, home-based business which she named “doodledee designs,” was born. However, there was a problem. A manufacturer who was making and selling blankets like White’s threatened a lawsuit, claiming to hold a patent on the design. Because of the expense of fighting the case in court, she could see little choice but to end her commercial operation.

Not one to give up easily, she acted on an idea: Why not take the same design and use it to make pillows for small children? “It was a resounding success,” she said. “For 13 years I made and sold the pillows commercially.”

The manufacturer who had threatened to sue her later lost a lawsuit after trying to block another person making and selling the blankets.

Opportunity again presented itself when White rented a booth at a Santa Monica, Calif., craft fair, a high-end show in a prosperous community.

“Everything had to be handmade,” she said.

The event turned out to be a bigger boost to her pillow business than she could have foreseen. Donna Holloran, a noted child development specialist and founder of Baby Group, a support center for mothers, babies and toddlers in Southern California, attended the show and saw White’s soft, lightweight, baby-sized pillows.

Holloran bought some of the pillows and found that small children became attached to and were comforted by the cuddly pillows, which were as lightweight as cotton candy. Holloran used the pillows in helping children with difficulties sleeping alone in their own beds. According to White, the only time the child could have the pillow was in his or her own crib. “One little girl didn’t want to get out of bed,” White said.

Although she can complete a pillow in half an hour, since she now works alone, she has more orders than she can fill quickly. She also makes the crib blankets on request. “I get behind,” she said.

While her business venture has been a success, White seems most delighted that her pillows have brought comfort to many children. She has saved a treasure trove of letters and thank-you notes from people who have received pillows – sometimes as gifts from her.

One letter is particularly special. She recalls learning, through a news story, about a 5-year-old girl who received a heart transplant at the UCLA hospital. Only her grandmother could be with the child because the family home was away from Los Angeles and the parents could not leave their work.

White recalls thinking, “I have to do something for that child.” Taking a pillow, she traveled to the hospital and negotiated the complexities of the vast building to deliver her gift.

Like many other events in her life, White said the couple’s move to the Hayden area was brought about by chance and a string of interconnected events. She says that she and her husband heard about the area from friends and had made a trip here.

She believes that the catalyst for their move to Idaho was another unexpected happening. In the early morning hours of Jan. 17, 1994, the deadly Northridge earthquake struck. The shifting ground broke the bolts anchoring their house, allowing it to slide off its concrete foundation. Although they lived near the quake’s epicenter, the Whites were not injured, but the house was a total loss. The temblor struck exactly one week after the couple returned from a visit to North Idaho. The visit had inspired them to hope to live here some day.

After the quake, insurance allowed the couple to rebuild their California home – much larger than the original house – and at the time the house was a good fit, filled with children and grandchildren. But, eventually, when family began moving away, the couple felt it was time to sell a house that had become too large for their needs.

Six years ago they followed their dream north after selling their California property, and White said they are happy with the move. She says it was another unexpected opportunity.

There is a word for this: serendipity.

White, of retirement age but not ready to retire, continues to make pillows and blankets in a large but cozy second-floor room of her Hayden home. Most of her local business is the result of word-of-mouth advertising, and she continues to fill orders coming from her former California home.

Despite the potential to expand and hire people to work with her, it will remain a one-woman operation. She has time to enjoy her new home, family, friends, church and playing golf, and she often marvels at the string of events that brought her to this point in her life.