More
About Iaulanda and
Her Storyteller Dolls
Dear Friends of Iaulanda's dolls: Here are a few updated details about my mother and her dolls. My mother destroyed the dies handmade by my father in 1978, the year I graduated from high school. She then retired, married an attorney, took up golf, and spent the rest of her days creating wonderful projects for family and friends. Eventually, she moved to Florida, where she died in 1990. My mother never made a set for me because I was a little girl when she started making them. She always sent at least one of every new creation to my brother, who is 18 years older than me, but always said she would pass her set on to me. Of course, it was the best because she also had all the ornaments that never made it into production as well as a few odditites. Unfortunately, due to a complicated set of circumstances, my mother's ornaments were never passed to me. Instead, after my step-father died, his third wife sold them in a garage sale, including the prized Storyteller, my mother's signature piece. My cousins and I were later able to recollect a few of these originals including the little Finnish girl made for me for a sixth grade project I did on Finnland. (I had a life-sized dress to match the doll.) But most of the dolls are still out there somewhere in private collections. The photos on this site represent
a small amount of all the dolls created by my mother. My cousins
and I are working on a list to post here, a portion of which is below.
Initially, my mother began by creating what she called "The
Ornament of the Month Club." Members received an ornament each
month. She later sold from a list created for that year. At the climax
of her work, she sold ornaments to Marshfield's in Chicago (and subsideraries),
and Frederick Nelson's in Seattle. She also sold to some specialty
shops in Mass., Mich., and Penn. She also had a strong following
who learned of her work via countless news articles and intervies.
She made dolls all year to sell in large quantities in November and
December. Several of the ornaments pictured were made by my mother's
good friend Lydia Meyer, and were the spark that got my mother started.
My cousin Kerry enjoys making ornaments in the flavor of my mother's
ideas. (Click here to see some examples
and to contact Kerry). My
younger son Mark has also taught himself how to make characters patterned
after his favorite anime shows. If you would like to know more about any item, please write to me at info(AT)saloff.com. We enjoy hearing stories from collectors. We are also interested in collecting ourselves, but also are always looking for more photos of those items we are missing. If you have an Iaulanda's story, please contact us. |
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