Peggy Ann

At about the start of the 19th Century, the Creelmans emigrated from Canada to Southern Minnesota. The sister of my grandfather settled in Florida where she bought some property. In 1920, since she was a maiden lady with no children, she decided to sell some of the property and buy an expensive mechanical doll to give to Betty Jean, Ray and Christy Skipton’s 5 year old daughter.

The doll was about the size of a 2 year old with the mechanism hidden in the body of the doll with four cylindrical records, a windup crank on the outside of the doll and a speaker hidden in the chest. We named her Peggy Ann. One of the records I remember the words were:

“Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my sould to keep
If I should die before I wake
I pray the Lord my soul to take
God bless Momma, Papa and me. AmmmmMen”

In 1929 we moved from Minnesota to VA, MD, CT and finishing at Walmsley Road and hollow Tree Ridge Road, Darien. When all the children had gone off to college, the doll resided in an upstairs bedroom in a long discarded crib. When the great-grandchildren were not impressed with it and its record player had fallen into disrepair, I decided to part with it. The means and distribution I can’t remember. But the long cherished memory of childhood died. SO BE IT!

Lisbeth Leonard
Southbury, CT 2011

Add your story to this page!

Comment on this Story

Add a New Comment

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License