Six years ago this week, a tornado destroyed the doll house, but not the dolls.
More than 1,400 dolls that once belonged to Cookeville resident Velma Thompson, now have a new home, inside the county’s new veterans building on Highway 70. Collection Caretaker Melinda Swann said the collection features dolls from a variety of time periods, with the oldest dating back to the 1820s. Swann said the dolls making it through the storm, a miracle.
“We were shocked just to see that,” Swann said. “But we assumed that there would be some damage, but I was just so grateful that the building was there despite everything around it being blown away.”
Swann said the house was deemed a loss, and she and her husband had to work quickly to find a place for the dolls to be stored. She said the tornado was such a tragedy for the community that she initially delayed efforts to relocate the collection, but eventually found a permanent home.
“Our collection is organized and curated,” Swann said. “We couldn’t display all 1,400 because of the space, but we have a wonderfully curated display. Different time periods, different materials, and different themes. And it’s all labeled with information that you might find, or you would find interesting, I think. So I’m always excited about dolls. We know that Velma loved dolls, that she would never not accept a doll if someone wanted to give it to her. And we’re just trying to preserve these and to keep it open to the public.”
Swann said Thompson donated the collection to the county before she passed away. Swann said she was a friend of Thompson’s and never fully understood what sparked her passion for collecting dolls. She said Thompson never married or had children and believes that may have contributed to her dedication to the collection.
“Every Christmas she would get a different group of dolls,” Swann said. “They were all over her house, up in the attic and everything. She would bring them down and decorate her tree, and there’d be six or seven friends. They were like her friends, I think even family somehow, because she was just surrounded by them.”
Swann said dolls from the 1800s were not typically made for children to play with and were often constructed from materials such as china glass, papier-mâché, porcelain, or wax. She said the collection offers a glimpse into the culture and fashion of different eras.
“It has significance historically for fashion, for history, because the dolls reflect the personality or the history of the time, everything that was going on in the culture in the world,” Swann said.
Visitors can see the collection at 1656 West Broad Street in Cookeville. The exhibit is open on Thursday and Friday afternoons and during the week by appointment.