Pat shook her head. She was recovering from bone cancer, she told me, after undergoing a bone marrow transplant. “If they can find a good match,” she explained, “they basically nuke your bone marrow and drain it out. And if that doesn’t kill you, you have a chance.”

That evening I learned that Pat had a home just a few streets from mine but had moved back home with her mom while she recovered. When I told Par that I was an antiques and folk art dealer, she brightened and said, “I have a house full of folk art, and I’m having a huge sale a few weeks from now to help cover my medical expenses. You should come.”

So I did. The morning of the sale eager buyers formed a line from Pat’s doorstep to more than halfway down the block. She sat on the porch, smiling and greeting friend and strangers alike as we filed through the front door into the treasure trove that was Pat’s home. Room after room was filled with handcrafted boxes, baskets, pottery and jugs, paintings, carvings, tramp art, folk art — all the things I love and collect — from folk-y to funky to fine.

Miniature folk art chairs from Pat’s collection

Among the pieces I chose that day were two miniature folk art chairs, which I still treasure. By the time I left, the crowd had thinned but Pat was still sitting on the porch, crutches nearby. I stopped to tell her what a treat it was to see her collection — and couldn’t help but say, “Isn’t it hard, though, to part with all your wonderful things?” Her eyes sparkled as she leaned forward and chortled, “You should see what’s stashed upstairs — all the stuff I held back for myself!”

I’m sorry to say that I don’t know what happened to Pat after that, as I soon moved away. But I always seem to think of her as one year ends and another begins.

Pat’s chairs with a World War I Soldier Bear and a Tracy Gallup Man in the Moon doll.

And I remember what she taught me. No matter what happens in our life, we all get to choose what we hold on to … and what we let go.

Matching perms! Corpus Christi TX 1952

Wheels for Christmas 1950 Charleston SC

Remember the scene in the original “Toy Story” movie where the family car and the moving van pull away from the house, leaving a handful of toys behind?

It’s a scene right out of my childhood. In the movie, of course, the toys that get left are eventually reunited with their owner.

First Grade, Naval Air Station Guam 1952

My case was a little different. My dad was in the Navy, so we made lots of moves (I attended 11 public schools in 12 years).
 With every transfer, the Navy provided a moving allowance for our belongings.  And if we exceeded that allowance, the difference came out of the family budget. So, moving meant weeding out … having to choose.

Jean’s childhood dolls

And what I always chose first were my books, a cherished doll or two, and the occasional school project or award. To this day, I still have my childhood copies of “ The Secret Garden,” “Little Women,” and a handful of Trixie Belden mysteries. I also kept three prize-winning photos I took in junior high. And three dolls: a 1950s Madame Alexander Cissette; 1950s Littlest Angel; and the Raggedy Ann I wrote about in “Providence.”

A dozen years ago I started my antiques business after purchasing several collections of early Steiff animals. To this day, antique toys are an important part of my business. Like the early Bliss toy highchair I recently acquired, along with a J&E Stevens toy cast iron dresser, a pair of antique bell toys, a late 19^th c. rag doll from Vermont,  a handcrafted miniature sideboard and more.

I come across a toy with a date, a name, a place, a maker — something that anchors it in time, like David’s Doll, Helen May Neumeyer’s miniature table, Christmas 1886, and Charlotte’s Bear “Pierre,” pictured in this 1920s photo with Charlotte’s father  (also named Pierre), who gave her the bear.

Charlotte and Pierre

I don’t always know the origin of every toy I find. But I do know this: Eventually every toy finds its way home. And every toy has a story.

Pierre sitting

Trinidad carnival parade float

One of the best, most memorable vacations my mother ever had was in 1977 when     she went to Trinidad for Carnival. Her boss at the time had been to Trinidad a few years earlier to recruit employees for an oil refinery on St. Croix. One of the people he hired was a man named Vernon, a native Trinidadian. They remained friends, and Vernon was kind enough to arrange the details of mother’s visit. She stayed with his sister Vera and her family in the capital city of Port-of-Spain, which has celebrated Carnival since the late 1700s.

Fresh Coconut in Trinidad

With Vera and Vernon as her self-appointed guides, Mom experienced Carnival, not as a visitor from the States,” but as Islanders do.    

There were daily visits to  family and friends where the mood was festive and the reception gracious. “Eat, drink,” the urged mom, as they passed around platters of food and served up rum and coconut milk punch in hollowed-out coconut shells. They took her to dinner at the famous “Up-Side-Down Hotel”; sat on bleachers watching parades by day, eating picnic lunches they brought from home; and by night they joined revelers following the parading masquerades through the streets and cheering their favorite bands.

Mom and a crowd of boys

Early in the visit, Vera and her family took mom to an open-air market to buy meat from the local butcher Pierre. Mom is a friendly, outgoing sort, so when she was introduced to the butcher, she reached out to shake his brawny hand — which he quickly wiped before grasping hers. Somehow that simple gesture meant something to her hosts. And wherever they went, whenever they introduced Mom to a new group of friends, they made note of the fact that “Margaret shook hands with Pierre.”

Vintage carnival noisemaker

A few years ago, I came across a vintage hand-made noisemaker, the kind that’s seen in Carnival and Mardi Gras celebrations around the world. This one (pictured here) is European and could be from Spain or Portugal or even Trinidad or Brazil, given their cultural cross-pollination.  

Margaret

As I was adding the noisemaker to the Curious Objects Gallery, I thought of mom’s Carnival adventure: the island city, the food, the calypso music, the steel bands, the pageantry, and most of all, the hospitality that so completely surrounded her she was, for a time, Trinidadian.

The same thing’s true of people. You meet someone you find likable and interesting and then discover something so unexpected about him, it blows your mind.

That’s how it happened with my buddy Kevin Gordon. I was at FolkFest in Atlanta in 2004, happily browsing and shopping, when I wandered into the booth of a pale, kind of studious-looking guy with squarish black-rimmed glasses and a shock of dark hair. (Think Buddy Holly-meets-young-Elvis Costello).

It was Kevin, the unassuming proprietor of an excellent on-line source for self-taught and outsider art. At that particular show, he displayed a number of pieces by Willie Massey, and I flipped over a three-piece set of carved, unpainted miniature furniture. I didn’t buy them, but I couldn’t stop thinking about them. So, a week or so later, I contacted Keven through his website, chatted a while, struck a deal, and made a buddy.

He’s married with kids; I’m married with dogs. He’s got a mom the next town over from mine. He’s quirky; I like quirky. We share a passion for African American quilts. You know how friendships unfold. A year into that friendship I discovered “something more.”

Kevin Gordon

Turns out Kevin’s not only a go-to guy for great folk art, he’s a Nashville-based singer-songwriter-guitarist with four albums tohis credit; a song (Flowers) on Irma Thomas’s 2006 Grammy-winning album; a rapidly growing fan base including other musicians who’ve recorded his songs; and a steady schedule of festival and club dates all over the country.  (I know. I should’ve paid more attention to the Holly-Costello vibe.) When I played his album O, Come Look at the Burning, it was like– Wow! Behind that low-key facade is a heart that rocks.

Now, if the name Kevin Gordon hasn’t yet hit your radar screen, you can google him, of course. Or visit our links page and follow the link to Gordon Gallery. Or, if  you live near Santa Cruz, the Bay area or Portland, Oregon, you can catch him on stage in the next few weeks at one of the following venues. Check him out. And discover, as I did, that incredible “something more.”

Santa Cruz Area
June 19  Brookdale Inn, 9pm, Brookdale, CA
June 23  Crepe Place, 8pm, Santa Cruz

Bay Area
June 21  Ace Ciderhouse, 8pm, Sebastopol
June 26  Tucker Farm Center, 8pm, Calistoga
June 27  The Music Store, 2pm; Plough & Stars, 8pm, San Francisco

Portland Area
July 4  Waterfront Blues Festival, 6pm
July 5  Laurelthirst Public House, 8pm
July 6  Sellerwood Riverfront Park, 6pm

The fourth doll I bought for myself. And the way it happened was truly the work of Providence.

My dad was stationed at the Boston Naval Shipyard for several years and during that tour of duty, one of our favorite outings was to the New England States Exposition (now called The Big E) near Springfield, Massachusetts. Imagine five state fairs rolled into one, with parades, exhibits, carnival rides, celebrity appearances, horse shows, car shows, and reenactments of historic New England life. There were incredible things to eat, things to do, things to buy.

One year, as we made our way through a building filled with all manner of New England crafts, I stopped short. On a shelf directly in front of me was a homemade Raggedy Ann doll with her trademark yarn hair and eternally cheerful expression. I wanted THAT DOLL.

But I had a problem. She cost three dollars. And I only had one. Yup. Mom had given me one dollar to spend on a “souvenir.” Eyeing the doll, I asked her if I could have two more dollars, but she shook her head no. I tried to wheedle it out of her as 12-year-olds do. No luck. But I knew she wasn’t being mean or stingy. My folks had already shelled out a fair amount of money for parking, admission, food and rides. And mom knew exactly what we had till payday. And frugal as she was, there was no way we were going to blow the budget.

Still, when we left the building and started towards the Midway, I couldn’t help but feel dejected. I don’t know what it was about the doll – the crisp white apron, polka dotted dress, or brown button eyes – but I wanted her to be mine.

I walked along kicking the dirt of the Midway with my shoes when suddenly, on the ground in front of me, I saw a tightly folded dollar bill. I grabbed it up, and when I unfolded it, I let out an audible gasp: TWO crisp one-dollar bills folded together. Talk about a “sign.” Within minutes Raggedy Ann was in a bag in my arms. She’ll be 50 years old this year, and I still have her as the photos show.

There’s something that happens in the making of a cloth doll — how their nose is shaped, the kind of hair they have, the way their hands are sewn, the clothes they wear – that makes them so alive

At the Dolly Johnson Antique Show this past March, a woman stopped by my booth to admire the dolls. She described a particular doll of mine she’d seen a year or two before and really wanted, but couldn’t afford.

“Do you still have her?”

“I have her right here,” I said, pulling the doll out of a trunk. “And it just so happens she’s on sale.”

Her face lit up. “I’ll take her,” she said excitedly.

Providence!