Dolls in the Attic

Poking through boxes in the "attic" of the historical society, is like Christmas!  You are always surprised and excited by what you find.

Recently while just getting an idea of what was in storage, I encountered 3 rather large boxes that felt as if they were empty.  Did I get a surprise when I opened them, and found dolls, dolls, and more dolls, all handmade and beautiful.

18 of the dolls are wearing bridal dresses in period styles, from 1786 through 1966.
30 of the dolls are men and women dressed in period costume, starting in 1640 to the 1880's.

The dolls were made by Bernice Parfitt, of Ripon.  She used a book, called 'The Doll Book', by Estelle Ansley Worrell, which included not only sketches of the costumes, but patterns for making all of the dolls and costumes shown in the book.

Bernice started making the dolls in 1976, and made 1 or 2 dolls each year.  In 2008, when she and her sister broke up housekeeping, she donated the dolls to the Historical Society.

Here are pictures of some of the extraordinary dolls:

Showing her 'hoop' slip

1776 and 1786 brides

1815, 1820 and 1834 brides

Martha and George Washington?

1860, 1860 and 1870 dress styles

Three 1880 style dresses

1812, 1812, 1830 and 1850 men's styles

Ag photos

I've been going through photos, looking for some to display at the Agricultural Showcase.  (March 1, 2014 at the Fairgrounds) The Historical Society will have a booth there, and I want to find some old photos to draw some interest.
I found some old promotional photos, (probably for June Dairy Month) and actually recognized an old neighbor from my childhood days.  I grew up near Luxerin Farms, and so I recognized Clarence Sheridan in the accompanying photo right away.

If anyone can identify the other people in these photos, we would like to add their identification to our files.

Library Hours

YES, the library is now open!  Hooray!

But................there is always the weather to contend with, so if there are any weather alerts, such as a wind chill warning, or a storm warning, then the library will not open.

Current Winter Hours:
Tuesday and Thursday  from 11 am to 4 pm
By appointment, call 920-313-0535

Also, we are still 'straightening' things up a bit, so there is a need for volunteers to help to inventory library contents.

old schools

There are several photos of old county school buildings in the photo collection at the Fond du Lac County Historical Society, some of which are a puzzle, because they are unidentified.  If you know where any of these schools were located, or have an old photo of a school, I'd like to hear from you...

These first two pictures are simply labeled as the school by Ries Cemetery.  Well, I have searched and have not found any cemetery by that name in Fond du Lac county.  Could this be a mistake?  Perhaps the cemetery is in an adjoining county.  Note the front entrance roof, that has two different grades to the slope of the roof.  Very unique.

Unlabeled except for the date...

Where was this school?

This school has a bell tower!

Just a beautiful building!

This is a larger building, the bell tower is empty here!  Wish I could identify this school.

old street photos

The January weather this year did not lend itself to much work at the Historical Society library, but once in a while I brought home some photos to go through and want to post a few here.

If you look at the building on the left, behind the stop light, that is the old Fond du Lac Dry Goods Store, on the corner of Main and Second St.  This view is looking down Second St with the photographer standing on Macy St.  Note the tall chimney on the right, which also appears in the second photo.

This is the old Alhambra building, facing Macy St.  All of the buildings in these two photos were demolished to make way for the present National Exchange Bank building and parking lot.