09/23/2025
Inherited Memories
By Ruth Longoria Kingsland
International House Of Dolls
Some doll enthusiasts collect hundreds of dolls in their lifetime.
One may have specific kinds of dolls gathered during years of accumulation. Others have sporadic selections, with a variety of vintage, antique, modern and classic babies and beauties.
Depending on the era and even the financial status of a collector’s family, a 1990s child may have grown up with shelves and dresser tops lined with fancy and belovéd dolls or a 1940s or 50s youth retained one or two much-loved and cherished companions.
But no matter how many, or what kind of dolls, most have a common denominator: precious memories, old and new.
International House Of Dolls recently received in the mail a small collection of memories, wrapped carefully in tissue paper within a cardboard box.
Included were vintage photos of a beloved grandmother as a young girl, and family members grouped for a portrait or clustered around a holiday table.
Other contents of the box were three unique bisque, hard plastic and porcelain dolls.
The dolls were collected in the past century by Marilyn Kay (Kimrey) Beck and her mother, Hazel Lucille (Stark) Kimrey.
Marilyn Beck’s daughter, Haani Beck, of Belfast, Wash., said she was glad to donate this precious portion of dolls from her family’s past to the doll museum.
“I know you'll take good care of them,” she said, adding: “I’m so happy they are in good hands.”
The smallest doll of the trio is a 5-inch-tall bisque doll, simply marked on her back “A MADE IN JAPAN.”
That doll has a delicate, hand painted face, molded hair, a frilly, lace pink and white original dress, black shoes and white knee-high socks.
A white ribbon, likely added by her former owner, is tied in a bow at her waist.
The doll is possibly a 1920s or 1930s Penny doll, named so because the dolls were mass produced and originally sold for a miniscule price at the local general store.
Unlike many Frozen Charlotte Penny dolls, this doll has articulated, strung arms and legs.
Beck said she never saw that doll until after her mom and grandmother died.
There’s also a 14-inch hard plastic 1940s unmarked, likely Madame Alexander Maggie face doll.
Many collectors agree, Maggie face dolls often are unmarked, though made from the hugely popular Madame Alexander mold.
The doll has what appears to be human hair in a stylish lightly curled light auburn coiffure. Her face is delicate with closed Mona Lisa mouth painted with coral lipstick and open/close sleep eyes. Her arms and legs are strung and she’s wearing what appears to be her original vintage light pink sheer lace and taffeta gown, complete with hooped under skirt and a matching light pink bonnet, tied with a relaxed pink lace bow.
She has pink leather boots and white anklet socks.
The third doll is somewhat more modern than her older sisters, but originally a vintage and precious mystery.
A doll collector who saw our posted article on these dolls was able to provide some additional information.
This 20-inch baby doll is a Boots Tyner Sugar Britches doll from the 1980s.
Boots Tyner designed several dolls in that decade, most notably Sugar Britches. She sold the molds and also provided the molds to female prison inmates, where they also were mass reproduced. The dolls come in a variety of sizes from 8 inches to our doll’s size. Many are waited to feel more life like, as with many reborn dolls.
Sugar Britches has a porcelain head and hands and cloth body. She has a glued on blond wig. Her eyes are closed in sleep mode and she has slightly pouty lips.
There are no markings on her head or neck. Some of Tyner’s dolls have markings including year of manufacture and numbered maker marks, ours does not.
Sugar Britches bears a resemblance to late doll maker Dianna Effner molds of about the same era.
Because both Marilyn and her mother, Hazel are no longer living, no more details of the dolls’ originations are available.
Beck told IHOD her grandmother, Hazel, whom she called “Grams” died in 1992.
“She was a wonderful woman and a widow when she passed,” Beck said, adding, “And, my best friend.”
Hazel was born in Elk City, Kans., and she and her husband, Muriel Kimrey had two daughters, Marilyn and Karen.
The family moved west due to Muriel’s work as an electrician. Muriel also performed as a guitar player in a country music band, at the Belfair Barn, a popular dance hall at the time, which is where Marilyn later met her husband, John Beck.
Hazel had five grandchildren, including Marilyn and John’s two, Haani and her brother, Craig. Haani was adopted.
“Grams adored and loved us all,” Beck recalled.
Beck said the doll she remembers most from her childhood was her mother’s doll, the larger baby doll.
She said the doll always wore its long white, hand-crocheted gown, similar to an infant’s christening gown.
That doll “was always out and used to sit in a very, very old stroller,” Beck remembered.
In addition to being a mom, Marilyn Beck was an avid sewer, square dancer and later Gold Wing motorcycle enthusiast. She was a widow and passed away in 2015.
International House Of Dolls is honored to add to its virtual museum this precious collection of Haani’s inherited family childhood memories.
