Mom's dolls

The blonde doll on top is named Mia.  She is wearing her original dress and still has her little backpack full of tiny school supplies.  If you look in there you can see the words my mom wrote in her school book and the grades Mia got in school.  The story behind Mia is that during the second world war I guess everything in Germany was rationed and food was very hard to come by let alone toys.  At that time people would barter and trade for things.  Mom says you could take your silverware or whatever nice things you have out to the country and trade for food.  Mom's Opa bartered for Mia and gave it to her as a gift.  I hope I'm getting the story right.  I know my mom loved her Opa so much and he was very sweet to her.  My mom was in the sanitorium for a while when she had tuberculosis and he would visit her.  I don't know very much about him but I know he was very dear to her. 

The second doll is not a picture of her actual doll.  She doesn't have this one anymore.  She says with all the moves and the heat of Texas the doll was ruined but I remember this doll.  I even remember the smell of this doll.  She smelled like rubber and baby powder.  My mom named her Amosandra because that is what was written on her back which is very funny to me because I had a doll one time named Pat Pending because that was what was written on her back!  But enough about Miss Pending that's a story for another day.  When my mom was little she wanted a brown baby.  They have a tradition in Germany that if you want a baby, you put sugar on your window ledge for the stork.  Well, my mom put brown sugar on the window ledge.  Amosandra wasn't delivered by stork, rather by mail man as a gift from Tante Elsa (my Oma's sister) who lived in New York.  Tante Elsa knit a little blue dress and hat for the baby.  Mom was not allowed to take Amosandra on Sunday walks with the family because, you know... my Opa wasn't very accepting of the little brown baby.