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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
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It all started when Mrs. Gossler happened to visit a friend who had made a rag mammy doll for a sick child. She accompanied her friend when the doll was presented and Mrs. Gossler was touched when she saw how the child's eyes brightened at the sight of the cheerful doll.

Mrs. Gossler was impressed by the incident and the next day she decided to make a few of the dolls so that she could take one of them along when she visited an ailing child. She started with the idea of making only three or four of the dolls but she got so interested in the work that she didn't stop until she ran out of material. By that time she had an even dozen of the dolls.

Her husband is a telephone line trouble shooter and his work takes him all over New England. When he came home and saw the dolls and heard the story behind them, he remembered a conversation he had had with a woman who operated a gift shop near a children's hospital in Portland, Maine. During their talk the woman had told him that one of her biggest problems was to find a simple inexpensive toy that visiting friends and relatives could buy for the sick children.

Gossler decided that the mammy dolls would be just what the shopkeeper wanted and when he went back to work he took the mammies along. When the shopwoman saw the dolls with their wide smiles and gay clothes she bought the lot and told Gossler that she would take all of them that his wife could make.

Spurred by the thought that her work would bring cheer into some drab lives, Mrs. Gossler set to work to turn out a lot of mammy dolls with a mission. Since the main purpose of these dolls was to help the morale of little sufferers she designed them to accentuate the cheerful. She put wide smiles on their faces and selected only the gayest of colors for their clothing. She worked with the idea of turning out a product that would give the child the impression that her mammy doll was a jolly old soul who would stand by during the long hours of pain.

FOR MORE than a year Mrs. Gossler labored to turn out an endless number of mammy dolls with a mission. Finally she decided that by this time all of the children must have at least one mammy and that they would appreciate something different. Accordingly, she began making Dutch dolls and some small monkeys, which she dressed in gay colors. Like the dolls, they made a big hit with the children and the gift shop bought them as fast as she could turn them out.

Mrs. Gossler sells the dolls to the gift shop for $12 a dozen but she gets $1.50 each for them when they are sold to the retail trade. In order to make a profit at these low prices she has to produce a doll from inexpensive material with a minimum of labor. More elaborate dolls bring somewhat higher prices.

She uses men's cotton stockings for the body of the dolls and she buys these at a very low price at fire and inventory sales. She gets black stockings for the mammy dolls and white ones for the Dutch dolls. She dyes the white stockings a flesh pink shade to give a natural look to the doll's face.

TRANSFORMlNG a cotton stocking into a smart little doll is a quick and simple operation for Mrs. Gossler. She starts by turning the stocking inside out. Then she makes a three-inch slit in the center of the top of the stocking. This leaves two parts which form the legs of the doll. Her next move is to cut the toe of the stocking off just back of the heel. When this toe section is cut lengthwise into two parts about three inches long she has the material needed for the doll's arms.

The heel of the stocking forms the face of the doll and a few turns of string just below the heel make the neck section. After the cutting is finished the pieces are sewed by machine and when that operation is finished the drab stocking only needs some filler material to become a gay little doll.

Mrs. Gossler used cotton as a filler for her first dolls but she found that it did not stand up well under the heavy service required of a child's toy. In time it grew lumpy and left slack places in the doll's body. Then she hit upon the idea of stuffing the dolls with old silk stockings and underwear and it proved to be a good all around filler. She cuts the silk in small pieces to fill the arms and legs but she uses whole stockings and good sized pieces of cloth to fill the bodies. A pencil is used to tamp the filling into the arms and legs and all parts of the dolls are packed as solid as possible so that there will be no slack places when the doll is put into use.

Mrs. Gossler gets the filling material without any cost as friends who know of her doll project are glad to give her their discarded clothing. Many of them tell their friends about the doll business and Mrs. Gossler often gets a box of old silk from people she never met personally. They also send old kid gloves and men's felt hats that she uses to make tiny shoes for the dolls.

MRS. GOSSLER plans her doll making operations on a mass production, assembly line basis. She has found that if she does just one part of the work at a time she can complete more dolls in a given period. Therefore, when she gets ready to make a bunch of dolls she starts by dyeing white stockings. Before the operation is finished there are several long lines filled with pink stockings. After the dye has set she starts cutting.

When that operation is completed she takes the big pile of cut up stockings to the sewing machine and that hums steadily until the pile is ready for the filling process. She uses coarse white thread for the sewing. She starts at the legs and sews all of the doll except the top of the head, which is left open for the filling process. When that is completed she closes the opening with needle and thread and then sews on the hair.

The hair for the Dutch dolls is made by braiding several strands of yellow yarn together until they form a braid about one-half inch in diameter. A nine-inch length of this will go across the top of the doll's head and make two long braids that will hang below each shoulder. Mrs. Gossler also sews a few short pieces of crinkly yarn over the forehead to form yellow bangs that will show under the Dutch caps that the dolls wear. Men's handkerchiefs cut into four sections make good caps and aprons for the Dutch dolls. Bandannas are ideal for the mammy dolls and they add dash and color to their costumes.

Mrs. Gossler enjoys making dolls' clothing and she admits that she spends more time on this chore than is actually needed. She makes a complete wardrobe including underthings and she likes to embroider little flowers and leaves on the dresses and aprons.

She tries to make each doll's face different to give it individuality. She accomplishes this by embroidering the eyes and mouths in different sizes and shapes. The shape of the face can be varied by the amount of filling used. She tries to make each face resemble some living person she has known and people often comment on the life-like expressions of her creations. On some of the Dutch dolls she uses ready-made plastic faces which she buys in quantity lots.

She molds the arms and legs of the dolls by rolling them in her hands and tamping them carefully. A few deft touches with thread and needle puckers in the bottom of the legs and arms to form feet and hands for the doll.

MRS. GOSSLER likes to work out of doors during the warm months and this work started a retail market for her dolls in connection with her flower selling. Many of her flower customers came from a nearby summer resort and when they saw her dolls they began buying them. They liked them so well they told their friends about the dolls and before long Mrs. Gossler had an established retail market. She gets orders to be shipped all over the United States and Canada. Recently a summer visitor bought a dozen of the Dutch dolls to be shipped to Scotland as a donation to a church fair in her home town. Mrs. Gossler's home is near a U.S. Naval station and the personnel stationed there frequently buy dolls to be sent to friends.

Mrs. Gossler thinks that making stocking dolls is a good hobby for anyone who wants to earn some extra money, or for the homemaker with a large family who has trouble with her Christmas budget. The stockings can be made into a variety of toys that will please either a boy or girl. Mrs. Gossler has made dogs, bunnies, sailor boys, soldiers, brownies, and pincushion dolls that delight elderly and invalid ladies.