Little china doll - Black? or just stained?

Here are my Tinies. I'm going to change the skirt on the one in the watch case. The lace trim I used is too thick and doesn't fit right.

 

Ooooo Very nice!
Would you like me too see what lace I have around?
there might be something you can use.

 

Thank you. I have a ton of old lace around. The pink was handy at the time and new to my stash. And it wasn't gathered so I had to do it. That just made it to thick.

 

Vintagerobin, your "Frozen Charlottes" are delightful! The only one I have, my grandmother's, isn't displayed and dressed as well as yours. Someone, probably my mother, just wrapped a piece of coarse material around her. She is missing part of one arm.



No doubt most of you know how these tiny unjointed china dolls presumably got their name, Frozen Charlotte, but if someone hasn't.... BTW, they were also call "penny dolls." It wasn't unusually for a little girl to have several of these because they were cheap and fitted well into doll houses. Their name comes from the folk ballad "Fair Charlotte" by W.L. Carter. It really is a bit morbid little ditty that was probably told to the little girls about them back whenever. It was probably an object lesson?? I was only going to give the website that had the folk ballad, but it seems that site is down. The last time I was there in 2007 it was working. At that time I copied the ballad and info:
http://www.ohiokids.org/oe/yt/10f.shtml

"Frozen Charlottes are a type of unjointed china doll popular during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The name came from Fair Charlotte, a well-known American folk ballad attributed to William Lorenzo Carter. It is believed to have been composed some time between 1833 and 1860. The ballad tells the tale of a beautiful young woman who set out in a sleigh with her lover, Charles, on a bitterly cold night to attend a ball fifteen miles away. Her mother warned her to wrap herself in a blanket to keep warm, but:

" 'No, no, no,' fair Charlotte said
And she laughed like a gypsy queen
'To ride in blankets muffled up,
I never can be seen.'

"The couple rode off into the cold and, after traveling a mere five miles, Charles remarked:

" 'Such a night as this I never knew,
The reins I scarce can hold.'
Fair Charlotte said in a feeble voice
'I am exceeding cold.'
Away they ride through frozen air
In the glittering starry night
Until at length the village inn
and the ballroom were in sight.
They reached the door, Young Charles stepped out
And held his hand to her
'Why sit you there like a monument
that hath no power to stir?'
He called her once, he called her twice
She uttered not a word
He held his hand to her again
And still she never stirred
Then swiftly through the lighted room
Her lifeless form he bore
Fair Charlotte was a stiffened corpse
And word spoke nevermore.

"Of course there was a lesson to be learned from this tragic tale, and many young girls who later played with Frozen Charlottes probably were warned:

"Now, ladies, when you hear of this
Think of that dreadful sight,
And never venture so thinly clad,
On such a winter's night."

 

Wellll, that was a wasted effort. I certainly didn't need to post the above message because Carter's ballad/poem was mentioned in the eBay Frozen Charlotte link both I and Bev posted in replies #7 and #10. Sorry!!

--- Susan

 

Wasn't wasted on me , Lady !!
Thanks for posting the full poem !!

 

I love your grandmother's dolly Ladybranch. I think she's wearing her original clothes. Mine came nekkid and had to be redressed.