Allie on her favorite bench, sharing it with one of my Hildegard Gunzel dolls. I used to be obsessed with Gunzel dolls twenty years ago. Or maybe more. I bought several, including a one-of-a-kind wax-over-porcelain doll. My sister Michelle was also a doll collector. We came to it organically, as my mother collected dolls from the time she was a child. She kept them in a shed at her parents' house in New Mexico, and whenever we visited, which was only once every few years, the first thing we wanted to do was to go see the dolls. It was so exciting! The dolls were all carefully wrapped in newspaper or packing paper and we oohed and aahhed over each one as it was unpacked. When my mother passed away, her children inherited all her dolls, which for many years had graced a large department store display case in her living room that a couple of us had found at a going-out-of-business sale. And her dolls filled up the entire case, and spilled over, as there were at least a hund
