| Terri Lee and
Jerri Lee dolls from the early 1950's, wearing their cowboy and cowgirl outfits
still look as cute today as they did 50 years ago. (click photo to enlarge >>>) |
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What if you were a little girl in the 50’s and you
wanted a doll with dozens and dozens of different outfits? If you could wait until 1959, you’d have
Barbie. But before Barbie . . . there was Terri Lee. Flashback: It’s the fall of 1951 and I watch as my little sister Susan strips the plaid school dress off her Terri Lee doll and reaches greedily for the powder blue net prom dress my father has brought home from work. It’s trimmed with coiled pink ribbon roses and has a matching taffeta petticoat; I’m jealous because she got it first That year Susan and I waited eagerly every day for Dad to come home from his new job as manager of the factory in Lincoln, Nebraska, where they made clothes for the Terri Lee doll. One day our he would come home from the factory with a lime green sunsuit, the next day - a Brownie uniform, or maybe a white rabbit fur coat with matching hat and muff. We collected hundreds of clothing pieces. Many were prototypes that would never actually be marketed, even though the distinctive Terri Lee satin tags, printed in blue, had been sewn inside. Terri Lee’s inventor was Violet Gradwohl, a woman with an idea for a special doll, one she not only wanted to be attractive and durable (she experimented with a variety of materials for the body), but also one that would give a new spin on the idea of doll clothes. Terri Lee’s popularity was unquestionably bolstered by the enormous variety of clothes in her wardrobe. Every once in a while, Dad took us to the factory; it was amazing. Dresses were cut from carefully selected and expensive fabrics; huge bolts of cloth stood lining the walls of the small factory. Rows of women sitting behind buzzing machines sewed the intricately cut pieces together cautiously to meet exacting standards. Then each item was finished in painstaking detail by women like my mother, who worked at home, getting paid "by the piece." My mother's specialties included the fancy piping on the plaid cowboy shirts and the beading on the hand-fringed suede vests. Then, in December of 1952, a fire burned the Terri Lee factory to the ground. The effects of that devastation were slow to dawn on me. While my sister thought only of ruined doll clothes (we were told a fireman tromping through the snow came across a singed $250 mink coat), my parents lamented their total lack of income. But Gradwohl was a determined businesswoman. She decided to relocate in a place called Apple Valley, California. My father's job would be restored in a fairy-tale sounding place fifteen hundred miles away. And so we left Lincoln on our long journey west, across the desert in the summer with no air-conditioning. But complications ensued — Later I would find out legal problems, family disputes, and problematical business issues contributed to those complications (the last of the dolls were produced in 1962). All I knew was that we were on our way back to the Midwest, our dolls in our laps and a suitcase between us loaded with what were eventually to become highly collectible doll clothes. Today there are Terri Lee clubs, conventions, newsletters, websites, as well as individual collectors who are constantly seeking out just one more elusive outfit to add to their Terri Lee wardrobe. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Peggy Epstein is a retired English teacher and a free-lance writer. Her book "Great Ideas for Grandkids" was published last year by McGraw-Hill. Her articles have appeared in the Kansas City Star, College Bound, Footsteps, Grit, Teaching Tolerance, and others. |
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