Remembering her family...

        Little girls like to play with dolls and old people enjoy poring over family albums. Mrs Gertrude Spalteholz of Alameda, California, combines the two pastimes, for her own family album consists of dolls which she has made in the likenesses of members of her family. Now 84, Mrs. Spalteholz may have been inspired to take up this hobby by memories of her childhood in Dresden, Germany, a city famous for its figurines. Instead of porcelain, her dolls are built on wire skeletons padded with cotton and covered with silk and plastic wood.

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       The hobbyist works from family photographs of her subjects, copying not only their faces and figures but clothing and furniture as well. Besides the family portraits, she has completed dozens of miniatures of famous personalities during her 20 years of doll-making. Although Mrs. Spalteholz lives alone in a small apartment, she's never lonely, surrounded as she is by her loved ones and a cluster of famous faces. first publication, Sunday Star Magazine, 1957

The 84-year-old woman with her dolls, most of which are likenesses of members of her family.

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