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That was ten years ago. "I not only paid past bills but made a living as well, and I have sold as many as 4,000 character dolls in a year," Vina explains.

Vina Stayton has since married Robert E. Smith, one of her childhood friends, and moved to Vinita, Oklahoma, where they are in business together. Mr. Smith operates a poultry market, and Mrs. Smith has her doll house adjoining. By helping each other, they are able to meet the rush hours at the poultry market and then take care of her doll orders as they come in.

MRS. SMITH has been interested in making dolls since she was a child. She spent her childhood in the ranch country around Vinita. At an early age she began making dolls from cloth remnants, using native nuts for heads. Through the years her interest in dolls was maintained; and, when the emergency arose, she naturally decided to try to turn her hobby of making and selling of dolls into a means of livelihood. The small shop which her brother built for her on the highway near Alma, Arkansas, was the beginning.

Possibly Vina was fortunate in one respect. During the time they lived in the Ozarks they became friends of the late Bob Burns, the well-known Ozark Mountain entertainer, once well-known as a radio star. Van Buren, Arkansas, Burns' home town and Alma are only eight miles apart.

With the consent and best wishes of Bob Burns, Vina soon had on the shelves of her doll house a group of dolls depicting most of the characters that Burns used in his radio programs. She also had a great deal of co-operation from her friends and neighbors, who, although skeptical of her success in the doll shop, brought her cloth remnants and other things to use in making her dolls. She would usually trade them a doll for a bundle of remnants. A nearby lumber dealer instructed his employee's to save every soft pine crate that window glass and the like are crated in for Vina's use in making doll bodies.

Incidentally, few people know it, but most of Bob Burns' fictional characters used in the dialogue of his radio programs were based on actual people he knew—relatives and friends. The lumberman who saved the soft pine crating for Vina and who is one of her close friends, is the original for one of Bob's fictional characters.

Although his characterizations were highly exaggerated, Bob Burns had the well wishes of the original counterparts, many of whom have passed on. Possibly the homey atmosphere created by Burns in the exaggerated characterization of his relatives and friends explains the popularity and success of his career in the entertaining field.

"I shall always be grateful, and will never forget the friendliness and help given me by the people of the Ozarks," says Mrs. Smith. "Consideration of their fellow man in the simple and everyday life events seems to be inherent with the mountain folks of the Ozarks. You can't be a stranger among them for long."

In other respects Vina was also fortunate—her doll shop was in Bob Burns' home territory—she was selling Bob Burns character dolls—the Ozark Mountain area is a tourist paradise—so tourists quickly made the connection. Before long her sales were mounting, and she had all the doll business she could attend to.

THE CONTACTS Mrs. Smith made during the years she spent in the doll shop on the highway near Alma established a market for her Bob Burns character dolls that has continued to hold over the years. She supplies dolls to gift shops in twenty-six states in quantity orders, and this is practically a permanent market. She has reordering customers from all the forty-eight states, Canada, and Cuba. She has a customer in Hawaii, who for years has ordered one doll each month.

And all this business stems from the tourist customers of her original doll house near Alma, Arkansas. Many of these customers have become personal friends over the years, and they have found Mrs. Smith many more customers in their home areas.

"I have always stressed the wholesale trade—character dolls in lots of a dozen or more," Mrs. Smith explains. "By selling wholesale in larger quantities, less time in selling is involved, and a more streamlined method of mass producing doll bodies, clothing, accessories, and furniture can be used. Most of my business is mail order from gift shops and stores all over the country; however, I welcome individual sales, for from these sales new friends are made, and new friends mean new customers from their home towns. I have found that once your dolls become well-known, one sale leads to another."

Mrs. Smith also makes displays of her character dolls at school exhibits and in store windows. This keeps up local interest in her dolls which in turn brings in orders on a local level. The mountain type character doll is easily used in displays depicting a rural scene with a small cabin and other accessories.

To maintain publicity on a national scale, Mrs. Smith is a member of the Doll Makers Guild of Middletown, Connecticut. The Guild maintains a publicity and marketing program for its members, and she keeps them supplied with her character dolls depicting each character of the Bob Burns Arkansas folk.

Each character doll that Mrs. Smith sells has a small label glued to the outside of the clothing which states—Bob Burns Folks of Arkansas, I am Grandpa Snazzy (Uncle Slug, or whichever character the doll represents). Another small label glued to the inside of the clothing states—Made by Vina Stayton Smith, Vinita, Oklahoma.

BOB BURNS character dolls sell wholesale at $16.20 a dozen for standing dolls. Sitting dolls sell for $24 a dozen, and this price includes chairs or rustic settees. The retail individual doll prices are $2 for a standing doll, and $3 for a sitting doll and chair.

Mrs. Smith also fills many special orders for customers who wish groups of dolls in special clothing or with a particular set of small furniture. On orders of this kind she must quote a separate price for each particular order.

Mrs. Smith estimates that the material costs for a dozen standing dolls are about $4.80, and the cost of a dozen sitting dolls is about $8.40 which includes chairs or settees.

"I have tried to make a character doll in a price range that is in reach of every doll collector," Mrs. Smith says. "To make a larger and more complicated doll, the final retail price would be prohibitive to all but the more wealthy doll collectors. The Bob Burns character dolls are so well-known and liked that many collectors want a complete set of them and the price of my dolls makes this possible."

Mrs. Smith's dolls depict seven of the Bob Burns characters: Grandpa Snazzy has a long white beard and white hair, and has either a fiddle, rifle, or Bible in his hands. Grandma Snazzy with her white hair, dress with leg-of-mutton sleeves, and the striped unmentionables is a fair match for Grandpa Snazzy, Aunt Boo wears a sunbonnet and is sort of the mother type. Aunt Peachy always carries a reticule or old-fashioned handbag, Aunt Dutty is just a common everyday agreeable aunt. Aunt Poodie is always mad—her face is downcast with a peeved expression. And Uncle Slug—the drinkin' uncle—has a black beard, black hair, and a black slouch hat; he always carries the inevitable jug of corn likker.

THE PARTS for Vina's character dolls are made on a mass production basis. For one person with a little help to make and market from 3,000 to 4,000 dolls a year, the doll parts, clothing, and accessories must be made in quantities and then put together on an assembly line basis.

The finished character doll is about nine inches high. Wood from the ends of apple boxes or window glass crates is used to make the doll bodies, while the thinner side and bottom pieces are used to make shoes, fiddles, rifles, and chair parts. The doll body or torso is a wood block about 1¾ inches wide, three inches long, and ¾ inch thick. On each side toward the bottom, a curved notch is cut to form the waist. This notch is cut deeper for the lady dolls than it is for the men dolls.

A piece of ¼-inch diameter dowel pin stock 1¾ inches long makes the doll neck. Two four-inch pieces of ³/8-inch diameter dowel pin stock are used as legs for the standing dolls. Discarded window shade rollers which are made of a soft wood are cut into sections and whittled into corn likker jugs for Uncle Slug.

The legs for sitting dolls are made from a piece of twelve-gauge smooth wire looped through two holes in the bottom of the doll body. The wire ends are then cut to the proper length for legs, and then formed in the shape of bended legs so the dolls can sit in chairs. The tip end of each wire is bent back to form the feet. Cotton is wrapped around the wire to give shape to the doll legs, and then they are wrapped with white cloth strips to hold the cotton in place. White stocking material is used to make socks and stockings, and shoes are painted on this white cotton stocking with black lacquer.

Bob Burns character doll heads are made from hickory nuts that can be had for the gathering almost anywhere in the hardwood section of the Ozarks. The natural color of hickory nuts is practically a flesh tint, so they make ideal doll heads. The face characteristics are painted on the nuts with quick drying lacquer. Red lacquer is used for lips; and black lacquer for the eyes, nose, and ears.

In assembling the character dolls, the two ³/8-inch diameter dowel pin pieces are inserted and glued into holes which have been bored into the lower part of the body section. The short piece of ¼-inch diameter dowel pin stock is inserted and glued into a hole which has been bored in the upper part of the doll body. Trousers of the men dolls and pantaloons for the lady dolls are pulled over the dowel pin legs, and the shoes are then fastened to the dowel pin legs with small nails. The hickory nut head in which a hole has been bored in the proper place is then placed and glued to the dowel pin neck. Arms made from twisted pipe stem cleaners are then tacked to the sides of the doll body.

ORIGINALLY Mrs. Smith used print cloth remnants for the lady doll dresses; but, when her business expanded, she found that she could save by buying full bolts of print material at wholesale prices. Colored felt for hats, bonnets, handbags, and men's trousers is bought in the same way. Pipe stem cleaners used in making the doll arms are also bought in case lots at wholesale prices.

"I make all the doll clothing in the styles of a generation just past," Mrs. Smith says. "Floor length full flowing skirts, blouses with leg-of-mutton sleeves, and the long frilled pantaloons are reminiscent of that age."

A friend of Mrs. Smith who is in the garment manufacturing business in New York City sends her bundles of remnant lace which she uses in trimming the lady dolls' petticoats and pantaloons.

Doll hair and beards are made from the heavy sisal or jute cord used to tie packages. This cord can be unwound and used in the natural color or dyed in suitable colors. Most of the lady dolls have hairdos in a pompadour style with a bun rolled on the back of the neck. Dupont glue is used to glue the hair and beards to the hickory nut heads, the dowel pin pieces into the doll body, and the labels to the doll clothing.

Rocking chairs are made from the side and bottom boards of apple boxes or glass crates with a lattice back made from the small round sticks used by doctors to make throat swabs. The back of each rocking chair is draped with a small crocheted tidie. A generation ago no rocking chair was complete without a decorative tidie draped over the back.

Rustic settees are made from a six-inch section of a small tree limb which is sawed in half, making the seats for two settees. Four short legs are inserted in holes which have been bored in the round side of a half. The lattice back is then assembled on the smooth or seat side of the section. Small limbs and throat swab sticks are used to make this back rest.