Rocks and Dolls

Eleanor St. George, a famous doll author and collector of the late forties and fifties, wrote that doll collectors are seldom single minded people. She mentioned a collector with fabulous gold coins, and d that bred quarter horses. A few years ago, I had the honored pleasure of speaking with the daughter of a famous doll author and collector who was a founding member of the UFDC. Jan's father was an expert in stamps, but she told me that besides dolls, they collected rocks and all kinds of things. Then, this week on Facebook, two of my doll collecting friends posted pictures of their crystals and pebbles. Rock hounds and doll collectors are kindred spirits. My dear friend, the late Rochelle Murray, was as fascinated witch dolls as I am. She also volunteered at the local rock and gem show. Another woman I know who does estate sales has also volunteered there. A former doll show promoter was a gemologist in her other life. My own mother was a huge rock hound. Her family had a rock garden made of stones and even shells collected on their trips throughout the United States and Mexico. When my mom and dad and I took trips, we collected rocks, shells, petrified wood and drift wood along with dolls. These were from all over the world; from seashores and deserts, from craggy paths. One pebbble, a gift from my teacher and mentor in college, came from a path Darwin took during the Voyage of The Beagle.

Six years ago we Began

Museum timeline over twenty years sgo, I started writing s business plan for my future doll museum. I also drafted articles of incorporation and bylaws. I have axsketch books with display designs and ideas, hand drawn. After some stops and starts, we got tax numbers for not for profits and filed all the paperwork. That will be six years ago this July. Almost five years ago, we opened in a small rented space. we stayed one year. during that time, we won the bid on our ild branch library building I started working on moving things immediately after a derecbo where we lost power. I was hot, but light enough. still our parking lot was littered with doll shoes and toy parts. It took a year to get it all up, and we still are a work in progress. We keep at it with help from the rest of our awesome board. Thanks to all our supporters and to the memory of my famuly, who made all this possible.

Skyward from our guest blogger, Dr. David Levy on the Northern Lights

Skyward for June 2024. By David H. Levy

Aurora Borealis over Arctic Circle 2020

is The Aurora Boreali, East Jordan MI, photo by David Levy For the last few nights I have been looking in one particular direction of the sky: the northeast. Over a period of four nights, I have noticed a faint glow in that direction. It wasn’t bright, certainly nothing about which to write home, but it was the aurora borealis. It is a direct message from the Sun to us, a cosmic hello to we the people here on Earth. I also was aware that this aurora was a direct result of a gigantic group of at least 60 sunspots that had been rowing across the surface of the Sun. The Northern lights and I have been good friends since my first view of a small display, back in 1961 when I was just beginning my teenage years. I duly informed Louis Duchow, the person in charge of aurora reports at the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada’s Montreal Centre. “Did you write up a report on it?” he asked. When I answered in the negative, he said, “Then you really haven’t seen it.” It was a silly answer but there was a morsel of truth in it. I began filling out Aurora reports pretty religiously after that. The night of July 8, 1966, was the night without a dusk. The Sun set, and as I watched the darkening sky, the sky just didn’t get dark. Instead, the post-sunset glow slowly shifted from the northwest to the north, and then just stayed there. The sky also gradually turned a bright green as the auroral glow grew brighter. Then the first bright ray appeared, and within an hour, rays were growing all over the sky. Two months later, a even better display lit up the whole sky from Montreal. I was waiting for a bus to go to the Observatory for their typical Saturday night meeting when I saw a giant coronal arc at the zenith of the sky. I just turned around and walked home to watch this mighty show. Over the years I have seen other displays of the northern lights, some from the northeast, and several from my current home in southern Arizona. Possibly the nicest one took place from the great auroral arc around the Arctic circle. Our airplane took off from Whitehorse, in Canada’s Yukon territory, and the instant pur plane rose above the clouds the sky was covered with aurora. The Northern Lights are best seen without any optical aid at all, without binoculars, without a telescope. When the display appears, just open your eyes and relish the sight. Next to a total eclipse of the Sun, about which I wrote last month, the aurora is one of Nature’s grandest spectacles.