Untold Stories A Dolls’ House Just Shy Of 100, Florence Hart Is Not A Retiring Personality

Florence Hart’s comfortable North Side apartment is doll headquarters where she sews, stuffs, glues and embroiders babies, santas, frogs and scarecrows under the supervision of her 20-pound cat, D.C.

“I was just a young girl of 80 when I started,” says 99-year-old Hart. “It’s nice to have something to do.”

Originally intended as gifts for her teenage grandchildren, Hart took her first dolls to show her mother, who was living in a convalescent home.

“She said, ‘Why don’t you just leave them here’ and one thing led to another,” says Hart. She now fills orders for customers who find her through word of mouth. Work is done at Hart’s pace.

“So many old people I know, absolutely everything they talk about is what the doctor says,” Hart observes. “It’s boring.”

Her dolls are her therapy, she says, and keep her happy.

And as for the doctor, “I just flatly refuse to go to a doctor,” she says. Although she visits the dentist and eye doctor and gets her annual flu shot, she doesn’t remember the last time she went for a regular doctor’s visit.

And she wouldn’t have time anyway. Hart needed the assistance of daughter-in-law Billie Hart to fill her Christmas orders this year. “I’m running a sweat shop,” she says.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 4 photos

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Stories and photos by Sandra Bancroft-Billings