Polly Heckewelder, A Doll Tasha Tudor Illustrated!

Polly Trims the Christmas Tree!

My "Polly Heckewelder" doll is hanging ornaments on the Christmas tree! Under the tree are boxes wrapped in old time Christmas paper. "Polly" is wearing red and white striped stockings.

Tasha Tudor and her family called their "Polly Heckewelder" doll "Babby". Tasha Tudor frequently used the "Polly Heckewelder" doll in her illustrations. It is so much fun to look through her cards and books to find the "Polly" doll!

One year little Babby (the "Polly Heckewelder" doll) accompanied Tasha's family when going to get the Christmas tree but because there was so much snow, Tasha, the younger children, and Babby remained on a big rock and played whilst waiting until Tasha's husband and the older children exited the woods with the cut majestic Christmas tree.

 

In "The Bouquet, A Journal for the Lady of Fashion", a miniature magazine Tasha Tudor made for the dolls and their toy animal friends, Tasha describes an upcoming skating party for the dolls at which Babby "will be in charge of refreshments".

My "Polly" has beautiful forget-me-not blue eyes, hair parted in the middle in an old fashioned way, and a pleasant smile. Her face reminds me of the doll in Tasha's illustrations. My "Polly" is possibly from the 1930s. She had a solid blue dress at one time, and then someone changed her into a pink gingham dress, but I changed her into a blue gingham dress. The "Polly" dolls' faces and hair were painted on fabric and they are all a bit different. The "Polly Heckewelder" doll was made, starting in 1872, by the Moravian Ladies in Pennsylvania and has been made by them ever since. Tasha often drew the "Polly" doll in the traditional blue or pink gingham dress and a white crocheted cap. In Tasha's illustrations "Polly" sometimes wears red and white striped stockings.

"Polly" appears in Tasha Tudor's illustrations of "The Night Before Christmas", in the 1962, 1975 and 1999 versions, and also with "The Night Before Christmas" poem in "First Poems of Childhood". It is always such a delight to find the "Polly" doll in Tasha's Christmas cards!

 

 

Tillie Tinkham, the seamstress mouse for the dolls and critters at Corgyncombe, was found in a Christmas stocking on the mantel.

 

 

"The Night Before Christmas" by Clement Clarke Moore, illustrated by Tasha Tudor, 1999 version, is in the photograph above. The page showing the bedroom is illuminated by a beeswax candle in a tin candlestick. The tin candlestick was a gift to my daughter Sarah from a tinsmith who admired her old fashioned tin lunch pail. When she gave him a homemade cookie out of her tin lunch pail he gave her the tin candlestick. Every year, in exchange for a cookie, a gift made out of tin was received. Also in the photograph is an antique handspun, handwoven wool blanket.

In "The Night Before Christmas" illustration, on the bed, pushed aside when Father "sprang from his bed to see what was the matter", a blue and white plaid woven blanket can be seen. On the previous page it shows Father and Mother in their big canopy bed and the little girls in the trundle bed both with a blue plaid top cover. A "Polly Heckewelder" doll accompanies the little girls' slumber atop the trundle bed.

Some of the photographs and some of the writings on this post are from previous Corgyncombe Courant posts that can be found here on the Corgyncombe Courant and from our web site and our previous postings elsewhere on the internet.


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