By Scarlett Teel

A while back, some of my friends from Senior Connection invited me to go with them to see one of the member’s dolls.

The dolls belonged to Charlotte Lucille Mims Johnson. Charlotte was born in 1933 to James William (Jim) Mims and Charlotte Mims here in Chilton County, the 16th child in a family of 17. She said she loved to own and play with dolls then but had very few.

She grew up and married Napoleon (Nap) Coker Jr., and to them were born three children: Ronald, Judy and Randy. After 22 years of marriage, Mr. Coker was killed in a tractor accident.

Charlotte said that she liked buying dolls for her daughter, Judy, but she did not think of collecting them until her granddaughters came along.

They gave her dolls, and she gave them dolls. Soon, she had over 400 dolls and decided that number of dolls and 20 years of time was enough.

She began to give them away, but not before the dolls had a room of their own with many of them set up in scenes with tricycles, cars or furniture. She let her grandchildren play sometimes with the Cabbage Patch or Madame Alexander dolls, but mostly the dolls were displayed all over the house.

I asked her which doll was her favorite. She hesitated before she told me that the Annette Himstedt dolls were her favorite.

Other doll makers and companies represented in her collection were Effanbee Doll Co., World Doll Company, Danbury Mint, Lee Middleton, Zanini & Zambelli and many others.

She had dolls representing many countries and easy to recognize were personality dolls of our country such as Arthur Murry, Dolly Parton, Marilyn Monroe, George Burns and Elvis Presley.

Charlotte said that she really enjoyed having her doll collection, but now that she is older, material things do not mean as much to her as before.

She is in the process of giving them to her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren and hoping they get as much pleasure from them as she did.

Charlotte proved to me that girls never get too old to have dolls.

Scarlett Teel is a community correspondent for The Clanton Advertiser. Look for the next installment of her column in a future edition of the newspaper.