Doll-A-Day 2023 #202: HeBee Birthday and Things we Lost (and Didn't Lose) in the Fire Part 2

   You're probably getting tired of hearing about our fire. Ken has just about finished clearing out the burned room, so there shouldn't be many more reports of things buried in the rubble. One of the last things of mine that came creeping out from under the wet, sooty mess in there was this guy. He's a Hebee/Shebee doll.

He's still hanging onto his balloons and his dog!

Specifically, he's HeBee Birthday. 

  HeBee/Shebee dolls were the creation of Charles H. Twelvetrees. (There's a good page HERE with lots of information on Charles.) They were produced in the 1920's as composition dolls. This one is a plastic recreation by Horsman from 1996, but it's copyright 1925. 

Pardon my dirty fingernails. I dug in a lot of soot that week! That stuff gets under short nails and won't wash out!

He has a bunch of birthday balloons.

  I got him a couple of years ago, I guess, at a doll show. He was still brand new in his box, his little hands and feet, and even his head, still wrapped in tissue paper. I was excited that he was only, I think, $10, because I had been wanting one. So I bought him and brought him home. He was laying on top of the old books, outside Fuzzy's room, in preparation for Doll-A-Day starting back up at the beginning of this year. I had forgotten after the fire that he had been there, until one day a few weeks ago. I suddenly remembered him, and thought, well, he's lost now. I figured that if anything, he had surely melted. When he appeared a week or so ago, I was pretty happy. I mean, really, he's not in bad shape considering. His box is shot, of course. And he was pretty dirty. But I brought him back to Emma's to work on. I untwisted the twisties that were holding him in his box, and took him out. He still had the tissue paper on his neck, hands and some on his feet! What was really surprising though, was, the rubber bands that were holding his birthday balloons, and dog to his wrists were fine! One rubber band broke when I removed it, after trying to put his balloons back on his hand for a picture. I removed HeBee's clothes and gave him a bath. He's so smooth and plastic that he washed clean right away.

And no melted spots!

  Side note, the pillow case that he's standing in front of was also recently rescued from the fire room. My mother made it from a feed sack, I slept on it when I was a kid. It had a lot of soot and stuff on it, but I doused it with Spray and Wash and washed it twice without drying it, (which sets stains in.). It may need another wash, and has one spot which seems to be a singe mark, but it's pretty good. To explain about the feed sack, back in the 'olden days' around the depression of the 1930's feed companies used to make their sacks out of pretty cotton fabric. My mom wore dresses, and even underwear, made out of feed sacks when she was young. This was not the burlap feed sacks that people always think of. (My friend Lori was incredulous when I mentioned Mom's feed sack underwear once, because she was thinking of burlap bags!) People bought the feed for their animals, and then used the sacks to make clothes and quilts. They used to try to make sure they got enough of one pattern to make what they wanted to make before the feed makers moved on to another print. 

  He looks a bit confused about the whole ordeal.

(Does he remind anybody else of  'Henry', from the comic strip?)

   He's marked Horsman on the back of his little bald head. 

  His dog was in a little plastic bag. The bag wasn't even melted. Surprisingly, neither was the dog, because he's sort of rubbery. 

The balloons aren't plastic. They're sort of rubbery too. They, and their ribbons were easily washed.

  I washed his clothes by hand, but then I sprayed them with laundry stain remover stuff and threw them in the washing machine, for good measure. I'm not sure they really needed it. But they came out perfect!

He's about 8 inches tall.

His white shirt has an attached bow tie.

His short pants have an embroidered duck applique.

His shirt closes in the back with Velcro, and his shorts have an elastic waist.

His shoes are molded as part of his feet, and painted. HeBee/SheBee dolls always have baby booties with ribbons on them.

  His only problem, and for all I know, he may always have had it, since he was still attached to his box, is that his right arm is a bit stiff and doesn't move as easily as the other one. (I know how he feels, only, for me, it's been the left one lately.)

His legs are okay though.

I'm not sure what his right hand is doing. It looks like he's a heavy metal fan.

And here he is, all back together, even with the original rubber bands back in place! Can you believe it?

  There are a lot of other things that made it through. Here are a few:

  The first thing Ivy asked about surviving was "The Danny Kaye autograph?!" It was displayed on the wooden cupboard by Fuzzy's room. No fear Ivy!

The damage is to the plastic bag. The actual magazine is fine. He signed to the left of his head.

When this was brought to me I discovered another autograph I had bought for Ivy and forgotten about! I had never given it to her, so I passed it along as a late Christmas present.

Also sooty plastic. The autograph is fine.

If you've been around a while you might remember a post I did on my Barbie friend Stacey Nite Lightning reproduction set. It was new in box...and displayed on that wooden cupboard. When Ken and Emma brought it back here, it looked like this.

The plastic coating of the cardboard was melted. That didn't bode well for the doll inside!

The back of the box didn't look quite as bad.

But when I opened the box, everything inside was still mint and perfect! I even peeled the burnt plastic off the box, and it doesn't look too bad either.

These reference books were on my attic stairs. Well, a lot of that stuff got kicked down, and wet too. These books were wet and had the pages stuck together. They were dried out just in time, as I was able to peel the pages apart without too much damage, and dry them. It took days and I had to keep turning the pages as they dried. Still no word on my "Barbie Doll and her Mod, Mod, Mod, Mod World of Fashion" book. 

These were in a Priority Mail box in the Room of Water. They were left longer, as Ken concentrated on the landing and Fuzzy's room. I kept saying, I can tell you exactly where they are, and if they're wet, I need to get them here now. He finally brought them. It was too late for one Barbie reference book, but it wasn't a good one anyway. These were able to be saved.

  

These two weren't so lucky. They were far too burnt and moldy, and stuck together to save.

The tub the lid is from was in Fuzz's room too.

   I collect vintage kids' books, and elementary reading books. The one on the right, "The New Streets and Roads",  might get replaced someday, but I really hope to replace the one on the left, "Wide Horizons". It's the edition we read in fourth grade. I still remember the story about the trees.  

  The last thing in this post is the best story.  Ken's dad made things from wood. He was quite good at it. Sadly, we have few things that Ken's dad made. He gave a little, simple wooden stool he had made to Fuzz years and years ago when Fuzz was little. It had been in our bedroom until not long before the fire. I said to Fuzz, "Do you want to take this in your room? It is yours."  And then there was the fire, and I figured, being wooden, it was gone. And then Ken and Emma found this. 

It was buried under a huge layer of rubble. It's now missing a lot of it's varnish, and has some burnt spots, but it's still sturdy, and it's here. I have  some wood cleaner and bought some tung oil and I'm going to give it a going over. The wood is thin layers, so I can't really sand away the burnt spots. They'll have to stay.

  That's it for today. See you tomorrow!