Doll News Summer 2019 - 62

This "Pedlar Doll" was used as
a display doll on the Laughon's
sales table. Doll clubs would buy
a number of peg woodens to
dress for pedlar doll projects.
This lady was dressed by
Helen. Photograph by
kind permission of Brunk
Auctions, Inc.

Right: The prototype, called
"#1 Ida", is a careful replica
of the original, known as
"Ida McKinley", in the Abby
Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art
Centre. Her replica costume
was created by Helen. She is the
earliest dated Laughon doll, inscribed
on her back with the date 1978. The
Laughon family have kindly donated "#1
Ida" to Colonial Williamsburg. Photograph
by kind permission of the Laughon Family

"DOLL BABIES - HELEN'S OLD PEG WOODEN:"
In one of Fred's early (circa 1983) publicity leaflets,
entitled You know "Penny Wooden" he says "Just about
all doll collectors know her. Some of her other names are
Dutch Doll, and Peg Wooden, etc. I make reproductions of
these wooden dolls and my daughter hand-paints them.
We can hardly make them fast enough." His 1990 Price
List adds, "Dr. Laughon... began making a reproduction
in the style of the Grodner Thal, (Grodnertal) a twentytwo-piece peg wooden (he is) continuously studying how
to better interpret wooden dolls."
Their first dated "Dutch", or peg wooden dolls,
which were marketed around 1979, were very similar
to the original model. However, the family quickly
developed their own style - note the use of the word
interpret in his leaflet, rather than copy. By 1979, Fred was
an accomplished woodworker and Nel was a talented
painter, so I suggest that they were consciously replicating
the look of the historic dolls, a working pattern repeated
with other doll styles.
"Helen's Old Peg Wooden" features twice in Fred's
lecture notes, emphasising her importance as an
inspiration. They owned a few vintage and antique dolls
including several original peg woodens. Some are older
and more worn, yet others have the "newer" appearance
of "Herr Insam's dolls," which were sold by Pollock's Toy
62

SUMMER 2019

Museum, London, and the Williamsburg Paper Parlor in
the 1960s. Helen did not refer to any of them as her own
childhood toy.
The Laughons often said that McCall's Copy an Old
Doll article inspired Fred to make the Grodnertal-type
dolls. UFDC author Susan Sirkis confirms that Nel told her
they had a copy of the original version, published in the
Needlework and Craft Magazine,1953 issue. It seems that Fred
used the diagrams in the article as a technical guide and
the simpler peg wooden as his model - the basic working
method is the same for all 'pegged' wooden dolls.
The treasures include unfinished dolls at every stage
of the construction process. All the dolls started out as
a lathe-turned spindle. Fred turned them two-at-a-time,
marking where their leg joints would be cut, and either
carving their noses or marking where they would be
inserted, before finally separating the two. Initially all
the dolls were made from pine, but by 1983 Fred began
working in mahogany to create his little black pegs, and
later used bass wood too. Somehow, I do not imagine his
"Big Pegs" were turned two-at-a-time, as they usually
measure up to 32-inches tall, and when completed weigh
about nine-pounds (however rude it might be to discuss a
lady's weight so publicly). In a letter to Billie Aye, in 2001
Nel described the Big Peg population as, "about 20. (Fred)
is not sure nor are we! Certainly not many more than

Doll News Summer 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Doll News Summer 2019