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Discovered! 505
Odd Enterprises

Hidden Dollars

How to Make
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Small Business
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You Can Own
a Business

So Mrs. Spurgeon started making and selling character dolls in earnest, and since then she has made sales to customers in nearly every section of the United States.

Since girlhood Mrs. Spurgeon has had a consuming desire to do art work of some sort. Sketching and painting filled most of her spare moments until her marriage.

Then, by necessity, her dreams were shelved for the time being and all her time went into the making of a home for her husband, a veteran of World War I, and their two sons who are veterans of World War II. Both of her sons are now married and have homes of their own.

While rearing her family, the limited farm budget would not permit purchase of paints and canvas, so Mrs. Spurgeon turned to needlecraft as an outlet for her art expression.

She first made children's story character rag dolls for her own children to play with, and later made some Biblical character dolls as prizes for her Sunday school class. These dolls were somewhat crude, but the character doll idea was born, and from this has come the production of her original character dolls.

TO QUOTE Mrs. Spurgeon, she had to make "something from nothing," so her character dolls are made mostly from scrap materials found around the average farm home.

Baling wire, which she salvages from the baled hay fed to their stock, is used for the wire framework within the bodies. Cotton, which is grown in their own fields near Wainwright, Oklahoma, is used to fill the bodies. Discarded cotton stockings furnish material for body covering. Old clothing and cloth remnants supply material for the doll clothes. Corn shucks from their own corn field are used to make straw hats and accessories. Small copper wire, salvaged from battery cables and ignition coils which are found in the scrap pile around almost any garage or filling station, is used to make the framework for the fingers and toes of the dolls and for eyeglasses. Thread, yarn for hair, all-purpose dyes to color corn shucks, sequins for eyes, and textile paints are the only items that Mrs. Spurgeon has to purchase.

Definitely, Mrs. Spurgeon has created the expression of an art form from the most common and inexpensive of materials. This proves that the urge for self expression will always find an outlet, even if one has to make something from nothing.

The list of character dolls made by Mrs. Spurgeon is a long one. Besides the hillbilly dolls, Gramma and Grandpappy, she makes a very modern Grandmother with a poodle haircut and a lipstick and mirror in her hands, and a very modern Grandad in a dress up suit. She also makes a Mom and Dad set who are a middle-aged couple.

There are also Indian braves and squaws, Negro men and women, the characters of the Nativity scene, bride and groom and a preacher, sophisticated lady in dinner gown, gay modern misses, injured man in a wheel chair, clowns, witches, and Little Red Riding Hood and other characters from children's stories. In fact, name a character, and if Mrs. Spurgeon has not already made such a doll, in the course of three or four days she will have done so.

Mrs. Spurgeon has created a group of dolls depicting the Nativity scene consisting of Mary, Joseph, the Christ child, an angel, and two lambs. This group makes an impressive display and symbolizes the intense interest that she takes in her church work.

SINCE THE Spurgeon farm home is in a rural area and six miles from the nearest paved highway, Mrs. Spurgeon realized that she must get her dolls publicized in order to find a steady market. Not financially able to promote an advertising program, she conceived the idea of getting some free publicity through the newspapers in neighboring towns. Her method was simple. With a Gramma and Grandpappy doll in her arms, she walked into the office of the leading newspaper in Muskogee, Oklahoma. The result was a feature article with photographs in a Sunday issue. A short time later the same procedure in the office of a newspaper in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, produced another feature article with photographs, and the cost to Mrs. Spurgeon had been only her time making the contacts.

A free lance reporter who read one of the items concerning Mrs. Spurgeon's dolls contacted her, and the result was another feature article which was published by a syndicated group of newspapers in their Sunday editions.

Letters had started arriving at the Spurgeon home, many of them ordering dolls for delivery by mail. So in this way the mail order business for her character dolls was established. A surprising number of people also come to the Spurgeon farm home and buy direct.

The newspaper publicity also gave Mrs. Spurgeon an opportunity to appear on television over station WKY-TV in Oklahoma City. She was contacted by a station representative who had read one of the feature articles and consequently she appeared with a group of her dolls on a hobby hour program called the Guest Room.

For local advertising Mrs. Spurgeon has a mimeographed sheet describing her character dolls. Commerce students of the school at Wainwright run these off for her on their Mimeograph machine, and her only cost is the paper and materials used. In many high schools commerce teachers and their classes welcome practice work of this kind, and the cost is only to cover the stencils and the paper used. When making trips to neighboring towns, Mrs. Spurgeon takes a supply of these sheets with her and leaves a copy in stores and other business places that she visits.

WISHING TO find more market outlets for her character dolls, Mrs. Spurgeon wrote letters to the chambers of commerce of several cities in Kentucky and Tennessee. She wanted to find a market for her hillbilly character dolls in a tourist center of some mountainous area where the, dolls would be on display in the atmosphere which inspired their creation. From these letters contact was made with the Cliff Dwellers, a hobby house at Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and a permanent outlet for her hillbilly character dolls was established.

Mrs. Spurgeon also wanted a market for her dolls in some large city so she wrote to Marshall Field Company of Chicago, and the result was an order for a group of her character dolls.

An amusing incident occurred with her first consignment of dolls to Marshall Field. Mrs. Spurgeon received a letter from them stating that Grandpappy's straw hat was torn and requesting another hat. She immediately wrote back that Grandpappy's hat was supposed to be torn—that she had with painstaking care woven that tear in his hat brim to match the patches on his pants, his long whiskers, his snaggled teeth, and his bare feet, all of which help to create the atmosphere of realism with that particular character. Grandpappy is a hillbilly from way back, and Mrs. Spurgeon has definitely made him just that. This illustrates the special attention she gives to the smallest details in lending authenticity to her dolls.

Mrs. Spurgeon places a minimum price of $15 on her character dolls. The price ranges on up to $75 for a character doll with special characteristics—such as the exact duplication of a living person, and separated fingers and toes. Her prices for doll groups vary as to the number of dolls included and accessories and scenery needed for a complete scene. She fills orders of this sort on a contract basis.

Considering that it takes Mrs. Spurgeon from two to four days to complete a character doll and accessories, these prices are not out of line, and many times she has orders booked far in advance.

Women are not the only customers that buy Mrs. Spurgeon's character dolls. She has found that many men are even more enthusiastic about her dolls than are many of the women. Governor Johnston Murray of Oklahoma is the proud owner of one of her Grandad dolls.

SHORTLY AFTER her youngest son married, Mrs. Spurgeon made a bride and groom set of dolls for him and his wife for their birthdays. Her son and daughter-in-law have the same birth date. The groom was dressed in a sailor suit and the bride in the finest wedding gown. A small angel hovered overhead—suspended from the top of a small evergreen branch. But probably the greatest achievement in this group was the fact that the facial expressions of the dolls were immediately recognizable as her son and daughter-in-law. She had worked from photographs, and the doll group was a complete surprise to them.

This fact probably accounts for the success that Mrs. Spurgeon has had with her character dolls. Most character dolls have painted-on features, but on her dolls the facial expressions are sewn in. Every wrinkle and dimple is carefully stitched to create a lifelike resemblance. Textile paints are used only to touch-up the complexion of the individual doll and to mark eyelashes and the like. Eyebrows are made from yarn of the proper coloring and glued on. Ears are made from two thicknesses of stocking material sewn to shape on the doll's head and then coated with clear shellac for stiffening. This method of construction, even though it takes many hours of the most tedious work, creates a doll's face that is so realistic and natural that the dolls seem practically to be alive.

Mrs. Spurgeon has made many dolls with facial characteristics of relatives and friends that were so natural that they were immediately recognized. She has thought of making character dolls of well-known people of the political and entertainment fields but she has not yet found the time to do so.

Another feature of her dolls is the separation of the fingers on the hands and the toes on the feet. A character doll with separate fingers and toes naturally takes much more time in making and the price for the finished doll is figured accordingly.

On dolls of this type, each finger is separate and can be bent, or the fingers can be closed into a fist and they will stay in that position. This feature permits placing in the hands of the dolls a varied number of articles. Grandpappy holds his fiddle realistically even to the fingering of the strings, and Gramma holds her knitting needles or crochet hook in the correct position for the next stitch. The thread or yarn is even held in the right position on the fingers for realism.

Separation of the toes on the feet makes it easier for the dolls to be placed in a standing position. On the hillbilly dolls, who are naturally barefoot, the separated toes help to create realism.

THE SKELETON or wire framework for the doll body is made from used baling wire. A pair of wire-cutting pliers is the only tool needed to bend and twist the wire to shape. Having in mind what size doll she wishes to make, Mrs. Spurgeon shapes this framework in the proper height for the doll desired. Hands and feet are made in a mitten shape if no fingers or toes are wanted. If fingers and toes are to be designed, the hands and feet are made shorter; and the small copper wire is attached to the baling wire form, making individual fingers and toes.

For body covering Mrs. Spurgeon uses discarded cotton stockings. Nylon or silk hose will not do. She chooses a color of stocking material that most nearly matches the complexion coloring of the character doll she is going to make.

The legs and torso are cut in one piece. Arms, neck, and head sections are cut separately. Since the stocking materials vary as to stretch and because she makes no two dolls exactly alike, patterns would be useless for cutting the body covering, and she must work from a cut and fit standpoint.

From a piece of stocking material the legs and torso portion of the body covering is fashioned and pulled up over the wire framework. With a small stick or pencil, Mrs. Spurgeon then starts packing cotton into the body covering, beginning at the feet, then the legs, and finishing up at the neck where the covering is sewn together.

Next, the hand and arm covering is fashioned, pulled over the framework of the arm, and filled with cotton with the aid of a small stick or pencil. When filled, they are sewn to the shoulder section of the doll body.

The head and neck portion of the body covering is the most difficult to make. From remnants of stocking material, Mrs. Spurgeon fashions a head covering in two sections which are sewn together down the front to form the profile of the character. A narrow band of material is then sewn to the lower part of the head covering and to the shoulder section of the doll body. This strip of material forms the neck of the doll. The back part of both the head and neck sections are left open, and cotton is packed into the head and neck through this opening with the aid of a small stick. Extreme care must be taken in packing the cotton into the face so that the facial, characteristics will be established. When the head and neck are filled to Mrs. Spurgeon's satisfaction, they are sewn shut in the back and the doll body is complete and ready for the finish work.

Hair for the dolls is made from yarn, rope ravelings, and even rabbit hair, and is sewn onto the doll's head. Sequins, purchased from variety stores, are used for eyes and are glued on the doll's face. A small amount of textile paints for complexion coloring, and all-purpose dyes to color corn shucks for straw hats and accessories, are also needed. Purchasing these items is the only expense incurred in the making of Mrs. Spurgeon's character dolls, and to the present time she estimates that her total expenditures for doll making materials have been about $10.

CLOTHING FOR Mrs. Spurgeon's hillbilly dolls is made from the backs of the legs of men's discarded overalls and from other discarded clothing. Clothes for what Mrs. Spurgeon calls her "dress up" dolls are made from new cloth remnants. The clothing of all her adult dolls is made to the exact pattern of grown-up clothes, and each garment can be taken off the doll and laundered or dry cleaned.

Straw hats and women's handbags are woven from corn shucks, either in the natural color or dyed to match the costume of the particular doll. Glasses are made from scrap copper wire.

Caps and "dress up" hats are made from scrap felt, corduroy, or the toes of Mr. Spurgeon's socks. Ever since the doll making industry started in their home, when Mr. Spurgeon finds the toe cut out of one of his best socks, he knows that another doll needed a "dress up" cap or hat.

Since no two of her character dolls are exactly alike, Mrs. Spurgeon uses no patterns, and in this way each doll is an individual personality. This method of creating an original art object typifies the true artist, and Mrs. Spurgeon's "unfailing urge for art expression is exemplified in her character dolls.

Each one of Mrs. Spurgeon's is an original product; she copies no one else's work. And a label reading: "A Spurgeon Original Character Doll" is sewn onto the clothing of each doll, thereby designating the work as her own.

MRS. SPURGEON'S experiences with farm products have taught her that a great variety of saleable articles can be made from materials found on the farm—many of them waste materials. With this in mind, she is working as co-author on a handicraft book that describes how to utilize these farm products in a profitable manner. She and her collaborator hope to have the book on sale within the next few months.

A part of Mrs. Spurgeon's simple philosophy of life is the belief that the improper use of the spare time that people have on their hands today is the cause of much unrest in our country. She thinks that the best way to kill spare time is to work it to death with some hobby, and one can be well assured that the spare time from her farm and church duties is well filled with her hobby. Probably this thought was instrumental in her efforts to help write the book on farm handicrafts.