For Good (The Dollhouse)

Good heavens! Five hundred dollars? Should I even allow a 3-year-old to play with it?!

A few weeks ago, cleaning out the attic at my late father’s home, my brother brought down two items from my daughter’s childhood: a nearly 100-year-old babydoll crib that had been passed down for several generations, and a dollhouse.

I knew the crib was quite valuable as an antique toy, but I also knew it was the perfect time for it to be given to my little granddaughter, who at age 3 was a wonderful “dolly Mommy”. She would be delighted by it. My mother, I, and my daughter had each played with that doll crib. It had, as I had always heard the tale, been a used toy donated to a collection effort organized by a local fire department during the Depression. Cleaned and restored by the firefighters, it became my own mother’s childhood Christmas present. When she’d passed it on to me, she’d pieced a small quilt for it, which also still survived. There was no question but that the doll crib, valuable antique or not, would be given to my granddaughter to play with.

I was even more thrilled by the dollhouse. I’d spent far too much money on it when I bought it for my daughter in 1993; it was a true gem. She’d loved it and taken such good care of it that nearly all the miniature pieces remained intact, even to the tiny blankets that I’d crocheted for the little beds and cribs.

So I brought both toys home and began the arduous process of cleaning them up. They were filthy with dust and insulation from their 25 years of storage in the attic, and (though I’d certainly never seen a rodent in my Dad’s house) smelled faintly of mouse. I washed and wiped and disinfected, and used up an entire package of cotton swabs cleaning tiny nooks and crannies. My efforts paid off; cleaned and restored, the toys looked wonderful.

I knew that this type of dollhouse was no longer manufactured. Large and well-made of heavy plastic, with intricate accessories, the cost of such a toy all these years later would have become prohibitive. But I began to research the dollhouse on resale sites, hoping to find a few more accessories to add to it. That’s when I received my mild shock.

A complete set, dollhouse, two families of dolls (Caucasian and Asian) and virtually every one of the tiny accessories, was worth at least $350, and probably closer to $500. For each of those 25 years that the dollhouse had waited there in the attic, accumulating dust, it had been gaining in value.

Good heavens! Five hundred dollars? Should I even allow a 3-year-old to play with it?!

Of course I should. After all, what good was a toy sitting untouched, unloved? If she broke it, lost the pieces, then Rah-Shar*! So be it. It had been her mother’s toy. It was now hers.

My decision was totally vindicated when, arriving at my home, the little one approached the dollhouse slowly, not quite believing her eyes. Then she knelt before it, her breath exhaling on a long, slow expiration of wonder and delight: “Aaaahhhh!” Within moments, she dived in like a swimmer into deep water and began to play, surfacing for air only occasionally. The whole day went to hell in a handbasket as far as normal activities–getting dressed or combing hair, brushing teeth or taking a nap, or even eating meals–was concerned. Darting between the doll crib and the dollhouse, she played, and played, and PLAYED. Later she would tell her mother, “We didn’t have the TV on all day!”

In the afternoon, when a friend arrived to visit, she provided a “tour” of every accessory, doll, and feature of the dollhouse. Together we called her mother to say, “Did you know this thing has a doorbell?” (No, she didn’t.) When Mom arrived to pick her up, she repeated her service as a tour guide to the astounding wonders of the dollhouse.

Watching them—her mother grinning, the little child carefully displaying every marvelous feature of her new toy, I suddenly remembered something I’d written and posted to this blog nearly five years earlier, in an essay titled, “Saving Things for Good” (November 9, 2017). I’d been speaking about regularly using my fine china and crystal, regardless of the fact that I might break the lovely pieces, “…taking pleasure in them, because no matter how precious they may be, they are valuable only if they are appreciated”.

Like the beloved toys of the well-known movies, the dollhouse, awakening from its long sleep in the attic, had gained new life under the loving hands of a delighted child. Its worth lay not in its assessed monetary valuation, but in the joy it gave; was giving.

As I had written all those years earlier and now remembered: “Hoard nothing. Treasure everything. And save nothing “for good”, for our good is right now.”

You can find the post “Saving Things for Good” in the Archives. *You can also read more about the exclamation “Rah-Shar!” in the re-published post by that name from January 5, 2022.