When I was a child living in suburban Seattle, in a house with a partial view of Puget Sound and Mt. Rainier, a house built by my father in 1951, I loved my dolls. This love continued after we moved abroad in 1961 after I turned 11, intending to stay a year or two at most.
Recently, I dug out a bag in which I had stored a baby doll, complete with her wardrobe of hand knit sweaters and a tartan kilt skirt all made by my mom. I remember buying this doll in 1962 at a military PX in Germany. We were to spend much of the summer traveling by car, my sister and I installed in the back seat of our unreliable green Rambler. I was twelve, and still wanted a doll to keep me company during those prolonged explorations of foreign countries. All the dolls (except my Revlon doll) from my childhood had been left in Seattle, stored in the attic. I never saw my Seattle dolls again because we never returned to my childhood home. Our enriching life abroad suited us so we stayed.
One of those left-behind dolls was named Amosandra. I don't recall how Amosandra came to me because I can't recall not having her in my life. I was six when I learned to read and realized that her name was boldly embossed across her upper back, between her shoulders. The other unique thing about Amosandra was that she was a black baby doll. Who would have given her to me, I now wonder, a little blond white kid living in my completely WASP neighborhood? I don't remember not having her to play with. Amosandra was my ever-present baby doll and it seemed perfectly normal to me that she was dark-skinned as well as adorable. It wasn't until I opened the bag containing my 1962 baby doll with the sweaters that I started thinking about Amosandra. There in the bag were her red calico bloomers, the elastic still stretchy and the lace edging still white and nearly-new looking. The little dress with puffed sleeves that went with the bloomers, still so distinct in my memory at the moment I recognized the calico, was not in the bag. With my interest piqued about Amosandra's production history, and with a world of information now at our fingertips, I Googled Amosandra.
Beginning in the 1920's, the popular radio show Amos and Andy eventually spawned a TV show of the same name. Amosandra was the name given to a baby born to characters in a 1949 radio show. She was soon manufactured by the Sun Rubber Co. of Barberton, Ohio. For readers who are interested in this historic black baby doll and a broader history of black dolls, please go to this informative blog site authored by Debbie Behan Garrett: https://blackdollcollecting.blogspot.com/2010/02/moments-in-black-doll-history-amosandra.html
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