Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Catholic
Family, Parenting and Religion
A Tale of Two Dollhouses

A Tale of Two Dollhouses

Last updated on: May 3, 2023 at 11:09 pm by Mary Pezzulo

0 Comments

A Tale of Two Dollhouses 2023-05-03T23:09:53-04:00 Mary Pezzulo

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

dolls in a Victorian dollhouse kitchen

image via Pixabay

Grandpa made me a dollhouse, the most beautiful dollhouse in the world.

Dollhouses were my favorite toy. I already had a few– one was a classic 80s Fisher Price house, the kind with a doorbell which went “ding!” The other was a Forest Friends vacation house, with a loft for a roof, furnished with mismatched Plamobil furniture. The third was my mother’s old dollhouse, made by my grandfather from a kit a long time ago. I found it in the basement and dragged it up to my bedroom to fill with more Plamobil things. But Grandpa said I should have my own dollhouse, made special just for me.

Besides being the only internist in the small town where he lived and growing an enormous garden, my grandfather was also a self-taught carpenter. Carpentry was what he did when he was off his shifts at the hospital, if it was too dark to garden. He was the kind of person who had to be constantly at work on a complicated project or he’d get nervous. He’d built a playhouse that was tall as the basement ceiling for his daughters to play in– it had windows, a living room and kitchen with cupboards, working porch lights, and a plaque out front with the family name engraved on it. He’d built a second playhouse for my cousins, and a house outdoors that was now being used as a garden shed. He was in the middle of working on a great big church for dolls with a communion rail and a baptismal font– but he’d stopped that project when he decided I needed a dollhouse, and I don’t think he ever finished it. I visualize that lapsed doll church project every time I use the phrase “lapsed Catholic.”

“What kind of dollhouse do you want?” he asked me.

“A big Victorian mansion with a tower,” I answered immediately.

My mother shushed me for being greedy, but my grandfather accepted the challenge at once. He studied books on Victorian architecture to get it just right.

“Now, most of these Victorian mansions had dark formal colors indoors, but they had very light pastel colors on the outside. Would you like that?”

I liked it immensely.

The project took him well over a year. I used to visit him in his basement carpentry studio to watch the progress whenever I came to town.

“Sometimes,” he said happily as he worked, “I get started on this for the evening, I lose track of time, I look up and it’s after midnight.”

Finally, on one of my grandparents’ visits, he brought the dollhouse with him. The whole thing was bolted to an old-fashioned elementary school desk so I could keep it off the floor and store excess furniture. That meant it was over five feet tall, and at first I had to stand on a chair to see the roof. It was lavender and white, three stories, with a front porch and bay windows all the way up. There were two rooms with large-print Victorian wallpaper oneach floor– respectable red and brown for the parlor and kitchen; warm pink flowers for the bedrooms; and a smaller, more modest drab print in the attic where the servants would have slept. There were hinged doors that opened and closed. There were real working electric lights I could control with a switch hidden in the desk. And there was a tower on the roof, accessible to the dolls through a trapdoor in the servants’ bedroom that shut with a tiny lock.

“The insulation pops up sometimes, but you just have to press it back down into the windowsill and no harm done.”

“Why does it have INSULATION?” my mother marveled.

“Because the windows rattled,” said my grandfather, who never did anything by half.

I had so much fun in that dollhouse.

I can’t even begin to tell you the stories and fantasies I made up with that glorious toy: Agatha Christie style mysteries and fantasies about escaping to Narnia. I re-enacted Dickens novels as I started to read them. I made the tower into a lighthouse and played the dolls were trapped there during a hurricane. I pretended the storage space in the desk was a hidden basement and the dolls were brave Resistance fighters hiding their neighbors from the Nazis in World War Two. It was the best toy in the world.

When I ended up living in Steubenville I missed it. We had trash-picked furniture and no art to put on the walls. I wanted something beautiful, but there was nothing.

When Adrienne was born, I fretted because I couldn’t give the dollhouse to her. My mother sent me a few packages of things when she left in the middle of a visit and never came back, but she didn’t send the dollhouse. I never saw it again.

One day, on a walk, I saw a plastic frame left out for the garbage.

It was one of those Barbie Dreamhouses, a faded one with speckles of mildew, and there was a cardboard box of faded and mildewed Barbie furniture next to it.

Adrienne did not like Barbies, but I thought she might like their old house.

I carried the whole thing home, and went back for the furniture. I washed it all off in the tub. The mold stains never fully came off, but Adrienne colored on the plastic with markers so it didn’t really matter. The floor was drab tan plastic, but she covered it with rugs drawn on index cards. The walls inside were adorned with stickers of various themes. Compared with the dollhouse Grandpa gave me, it was garbage. I felt like a garbage parent.

Adrienne put her Captain America and Iron Man action figures in the Barbie Dreamhouse, where they lived a better life than we did. We couldn’t afford a washer and dryer, but Iron Man and Captain America had a sparkly pink set. We couldn’t get a ride to the pool very often, but Captain America went swimming in the bean-shaped Barbie pool while Iron Man lounged in the lounge chair nearby. She played with the dollhouse until the furniture fell to pieces, and then she replaced the furniture with little boxes and paperback books.

Later, when we were a bit better off, Adrienne fell in love with the UltraMan series, and we sent away for UltraMan action figures from Japan for her Christmas and birthday gifts. She also loved Beverly Cleary and practically memorized her books. This is why her dollhouse family are named Ultra Man Agul and his wife Dory, and the children are Beezus and Henry. Later she incorporated a whole village of eccentric characters into her play. We made up a “rescue center” with firefighters and medics, a band of madcap Batman-style villains, a whole world of supporting characters. Every time she got a new toy, she imagined it into the dollhouse world.

Adrienne doesn’t play in the dollhouse lately, though we do still make up dialogues for her characters when we’re driving on car trips. The little girl, Beezus, is now a teenager who films movies starring the neighborhood children in their yard. And she does still keep the house as a decoration in her room. She’s going to write her stories out as comical children’s books someday. I think they’ll make her famous.

I can’t be worthy of my grandfather, but I can be myself. And I can accept Adrienne for herself, the way he accepted me.

In the end, that’s all that matters.

Mary Pezzulo is the author of Meditations on the Way of the Cross, The Sorrows an d Joys of Mary, and Stumbling into Grace: How We Meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy.

Steel Magnificat operates almost entirely on tips. To tip the author, visit our donate page.

Family, Parenting and Religion

Previous Post

May 3, 2023

Some Thoughts on Donald Trump's Civil Trial

Next Post

May 7, 2023 A Word on the Shooting in Allen, Texas

Recent Comments

0 | Leave a Comment

"Thank you for bringing so much goodness into the lives of so many children.Ran across ..."

alwayspuzzled

The Passion of the Red Oak

"This current administration has had me reflecting on the Nuremberg trials and the like, for ..."

axelbeingcivil

On Traditionalist Bullies, and the Death ..."

"You're talking about supercessionism, the idea that Christians "replace" the covenant that the Jewish people ..."

Alex

Yes, the Old Testament is About ..."

"Oh I'm sure it did."

Mary

A Televised Execution is a Moral, ..."

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abortion Abuse Advent America American Christianity angel angels Annunciation Appalachia apparition apparition chaser apparition chasers apparition culture art art review babies baby baby Jesus Bad Lip Reading bad statue contest bath beauty Bible story blog blogkeeping blood book review Brandon Sanderson breastfeeding bus Catholic catholic conspiracy alarmism Catholic Oppositional Disorder Charismatic Renewal Charlie the Cat chastity Christ Christian idenitity Christianity and Judaism Chronic Illness clean clothing COD piece comedy compassion conscience conspiracy theory conversion cop-on-black violence Crucifixion cry of the poor culture Daesh Daily Saints death death penalty devotional diaconate diaper diapers dirty disability Donald Trump Dorothy Day dream drugs Eastern Catholicism Eastern Christianity education election election update Elsewhere on Patheos empathy environment Fear feminism film review fish flashback fluffy buns food Franciscan University of Steubenville Friendship Room fun Gabriel gardening gospel hair-splitting Heaven hell heresy Hillary Clinton history Holly the Witch Holy Spirit holy war Homeschooling homosexuality horror human dignity humor Icon idol immigrants infection inter-religious dialogue Interpretation of Scripture Islam Jesus Jihad Joseph joy laity and lay vocations lamb dinner laundry lent lgbtq literature love manners Mary Medicine and Science Meditation mercy mess milk misogyny Missouri monasticism monster motherhood mourn with those mourn movies movis music mystery nature neurodiversity New Pro-Life Movement news nonsense nostalgia O antiphons obituary objectification Ohio Valley Ordinary Time ordination Ordo Amoris parable paradox Passover peanut butter personal beliefs pets philosophy Planet Charismatic poetry politics polls poop Pope Francis Pope Leo power in the Church prayer prayer request prayers preferential option for non-violence president presidential election priest primary private revelation pro-life prophecy Public face of Catholicism Pure Flix Q and A race racism random rape rape. sexuality reader's request Reckoners refugee religious trauma ressurrection Right to life Saints saints and celebrations same-sex same-sex marriage satire scandal secular feasts seder Seven Joys Seven Last Words sex sexual ethics sexuality silencing six months skid row slavery social justice Speculative fiction spiritual abuse spoon stain story suffering suffrage suffragette Sunday Gospel temple Tenebrae Responsories Terror the exorcist The Friendship Room The New Pro-Life Movement Things I Learned on the Internet tin cup traffic true story tv review Uncategorized USCCB vice and temptation violence Virtue virtue and vice war Way of the Cross whimsy whole life women's ordination work of mercy Year A

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which Psalm prophesies the coming of the Messiah being rejected?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Psalm 51 Psalm 137 Psalm 118 Psalm 1