My grandmother was a beautiful woman, a petite blond with a big heart. Even as she was losing her battle against ovarian cancer, she still gave her all to those she loved. I was too young to remember the bad times, but somehow the good memories have survived. Though I was only about 2 years old when she passed, I can still picture her and remember her warm voice and her cackle, just like mine. She was a wonderful person, selfless to the end. My mother told that my grandmother became a frail 75 pounds as she grew sicker and yet she would still hold me, the chunky and quite heavy toddler, when I climbed in her lap. This is only a small example of her lifelong generosity.
I don't remember her being sick, at least not sick looking. In my memory, she is always beautiful. I see us sitting on a sheet, having a picnic at Clove Lake, a random horseback rider going by.
Or I see her this day... the day she gave me Raggedy Ann. I remember walking into the hospital room with my mom and dad. My grandmother was sitting up in the white linens of her hospital room, the curtains of the window open, the day cheerful, reflecting her smiling presence in the bed. Against the wall of the room, there was a blue toy baby carriage. I think I remember it being wrapped in plastic and a red bow. There was a Raggedy Ann doll sitting inside. I was excited and asked if she was mine. She was. I don't remember much after that. Just my grandmother's smile.
22 years later, I still have that doll, and the carriage survived up until a few years ago. She is falling apart, but I see every tear as a scar of love. When I moved into an apartment for graduate school, my mother bought me a mini Raggedy Ann to take with me, since it would have been difficult to drag my aging one back and forth without further damaging her.
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Raggedy Ann holds many memories for people all over the world. She has been around for nearly a hundred years.
In 1915, Johnny Gruelle patented the Raggedy Ann doll, who was not merely a doll but the main character of many amusing tales for children. Though his wife Myrtle told Raggedy Ann historicist Patricia Hall that Johnny Gruelle found the doll that would later become Raggedy Ann, a doll his mother had given to his sister when they were children, in the attic of their home while searching for something, legends about the dolls creation are still largely circulating.
The most common legend is the one in which a young Marcella (daughter of Gruelle) finds a faceless ragdoll in her grandmother's attic. She then runs to her father, quite upset about the doll's missing features, and the cartoonist Gruelle draws a new face on the doll. When asked what to name the doll, Gruelle pulls off the shelves two poems, "The Raggedy Man" and "The Orphan Annie," and says, "What if we call your new doll Raggedy Ann?"
As previously stated, in reality, Gruelle was the founder and designer of both the doll and her stories. Sadly, the only true tie between Raggedy Ann and Marcella is that Marcella passed on at the ripe age of 13, just as Raggedy Ann was debuting. She died, it is presumed, as the result of a vaccination given at school without the consent of her parents. Some believe that the dolls were meant to be Gruelle's symbol of the anti-vaccination movement. Of course, by the time Marcelle past, Gruelle's Raggedy Ann plans were well underway. While she may have symbolized the movement for some, it was not part of Gruelle's political agenda (see Dollkind for more information).
Today, Raggedy Anns and her brother, Raggedy Andy, continue to be handmade and massproduced. There are collectors and enthusiasts around the globe. While I never became a fanatic, I will always hold my Raggedy Ann near and dear as symbol of love that never dies.
