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Club, museum doll up state's first ladies
By CHASE SQUIRES, Times Staff Writer
DADE CITY -- She wasn't there in person, but Florida first lady Columba Bush was there in likeness Monday as she was "inaugurated" into a collection of first lady dolls that organizers think to be one-of-a-kind. Since 1976, doll lovers have maintained a display of first lady dolls at the Pioneer Florida Museum and Village. Many are decked out in replicas of the dresses the first ladies wore at their husbands' inaugurations, and all are handmade and hand-painted. Mrs. Bush took her place Monday at the end of a long line of honored women, beginning with a stern-looking Rachel J. Jackson, wife of first territorial governor Andrew Jackson. Along the way, the dresses reflect the changing times, through bonnets and hoop skirts, to lace and plunging necklines and ultimately Mrs. Bush's trim, black dress. "I think it should be interesting to all women who come in here, just to see what they were wearing back then," Pasco Pioneer Doll Club member Margaret Thomas said. Her sister-in-law, longtime club member Lovea Thomas, dressed several of the dolls. She said the doll club traces its roots back decades when it was the Tampa Doll Club. She recalled the start of the first lady exhibit. A club member had seen a similar exhibit at the Kentucky state house. The idea at first was to house a similar Florida collection in Tallahassee. But when the state balked at providing display cases, then offered to house the collection at the state's guest house in Washington, D.C., the club looked to the Dade City museum. Lovea Thomas said the Dade City collection is the only set of Florida first lady dolls she knows of in the state. As a member of the doll club since 1959, and in regular communication with other doll clubs across the state, she said she would be aware of similar collections if any existed. Club member Frances Davis made most of the early dolls. When she died, Muriel Kramer took over, hand-casting each doll individually to create the best possible likeness of the first lady being honored. Some first ladies, or their families, were helpful, Lovea Thomas said. Gov. Bob Martinez' wife, Mary Jane Martinez, even helped the club contact the designer of her inauguration gown. Her likeness sports a replica of the dress made from the same material, provided by the designer. In another case, Lovea Thomas also remembers hunting all over Tampa for a special shade of fabric one designer told her about. And in another case, a family led her to fabric -- the same type as the first lady's dress -- being used as a piano covering. She said club members have also strived to recreate the alternative fabrics employed during war years when silk and lace were in short supply. "Even the underwear on the dolls is authentic," she said. "If they were corsets, the dolls have corsets. If they wore hoops, the dolls have hoops." And when some administrations weren't as helpful, the club improvised. Kramer, 82, said she used a newspaper photograph of Rhea Chiles, wife of Gov. Lawton Chiles, to dress her likeness. "I think she was at a square dance," Kramer said, eyeing the country-style dress. Mrs. Bush's staff didn't lend much help either, Lovea Thomas said. "The only information I could get was that she wore black," Kramer said. Club members spent Monday dusting and adjusting the collection in what has become an annual rite, then installed Mrs. Bush in her proper place. "It's something special we have here," Lovea Thomas said. "It's a part of our history."
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