HomeThe Gift
30. Dec, 2009 
10 Comments
This year my family celebrated Christmas at my mom’s sister Linda and her husband Ted’s home, a custom jumbo modern Arts and Crafts style house built on a wooded lot in Racine, Wisconsin. Despite moving in just ten days before our scheduled celebration, Linda insisted on hosting, and she slept little the week and a half prior as she unpacked boxes and transformed an empty house into a home.
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Ted and Linda had lived in their last home, a modest, four bedroom raised ranch in a suburban Kenosha neighborhood, as far back as I can remember, so she had plenty of time to plan the home of her dreams, and with the help of an inspiration file of magazine and catalog images with ideas she liked, Linda chose every detail. White glass subway tiles coupled with the vaulted ceilings add a contemporary feel to the kitchen’s traditional maple cabinetry and black granite, and the slate on the nearby great room’s fireplace hearth seems the perfect rustic material to complement the home’s wooded setting. In the lower level walk-out basement, Linda created a natural entertaining area with extra bedrooms, a family room TV area and a second fifties diner-style kitchen with red cabinets and a black and white checkered floor. And let’s not even talk about the indoor pool and sauna. It’s the perfect house for them now, and Linda’s hard work ensured it look wonderful and felt warm.
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While touring the basement, I noticed a cabinet full of porcelain dolls similar to ones my grandma had in her home. Most of the dolls were lovely but old-fashioned and a bit frilly – certainly not the stuff of this very masculine urban writer’s dreams. But lying at their booted feet, a doll’s head with a sweet baby face and a dorky pointed hairdo caught my attention, and I asked Linda to ring me if she ever decided to discard it. In fact, she told me her mom – my grandma had made it in her ceramic workshop, and she I asked if I wanted instead an exact replica (sans paint and glaze), one of many extra doll parts she’d stored in a box in the garage. At first, I wondered if I should have it painted, but I think I’ll leave it as is. The white suits my home’s color scheme and I’m responding to the tension between the happy baby face and the stark unfinished material.
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As I rode home that evening, I realized that in a way, my grandma gave me a Christmas gift. And not a surprising one. Long before I bought my own Superman statues, my grandma was my doll pusher. Good cop to my grandpa’s bad cop, when he took away my faux Barbies, grandma gave me a Cabbage Patch kid she’d made herself. She even made an actual Tate doll after I begged her. Clearly I used the doll to explore issues around identity and its inherent artificiality in an increasingly media-obsessed world, one of the many early indicators I was quite intelligent and introspective. Now hidden away in a closet at my mom’s house, little man Tate’s curly blond locks remain the same year after year while gray takes up an ever greater portion of my calico tresses. Was it possible that my grandma somehow managed to give me one more doll? And on Christmas no less! The idea may not be so crazy in the context of all the incidents that have occurred.
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For example, after my grandma passed away, my mom and aunt Linda spent a lot of time organizing her home’s contents for sale. One day, Linda noticed my grandma’s off-white Bonneville sedan was parked on the street in front of the house. Which was strange because they had sold the car to a dealership at grandma’s request months before she passed away. When Linda went to check it out, the woman who bought grandma’s car from the dealer told her it operated perfectly for weeks until just then when the engine shut down for no apparent reason. On another occasion, my mom and Linda were working in the garage when they heard a crash outside. Rushing out to investigate, they discovered that the eagle my grandma had installed on a pole in her back yard had crashed to the ground after at least ten years standing tall. Why would grandma knock over an eagle? Perhaps because my mom never cared for it and told her as much. “Well, I didn’t like it – no,” confirms my Mom when asked about the eagle during fact check earlier this evening. A mother-daughter inside joke?
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In the end, we’ll never know whether our loved ones continue to visit us after they’re gone – much less whether they do so bearing gifts. Or maybe there’s a simpler answer – maybe the eagle doesn’t fall too far from the roof, and grandma simply lives on in different ways through her family. If so, it’s good to know somebody else is cool with me and my dolls. Thanks Ted and Linda. Congrats on your new home! And thanks gram. 
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Tate doll (but I never wore that).
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I did, however, wear that.
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I love my mom. She gave me this amazing vintage mechanical pencil she found on Ebay. It says Tates Mor-Gas, Morris, IL. Perfect huh?
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Virginia Vanden. When she and my grandpa built the shed in their back yard together, he accidentally drilled a hole clean through her finger. After she calmed him down, he drove her to the hospital. Which pretty much sums her up.
HE drove HER to the hospital? For real?
I love the doll head. How lucky Linda had an extra to give you. I love that non-shiny round face and the pointy head and how well it compliments the vases and bowls in your cabinet.
Linda’s house looks huge! And perfect for family gatherings. Cousins Christmas for years to come !
I just reread it, I though he drilled the hole in HIS finger, I should wait until I wake up completely before reading Strange Closets.
Thanks, Tate, for the trip down memory lane. Sometimes family can get on your nerves, but what would we ever do without them? I still miss my mom so much, but we have great memories of her (and Dad, too).
Tate, you were a cute baby.
Thanks Laura. I agree.
I love this very personal story. My favorite all time gift is a dollhouse my dad made from a Better Homes & Gardens plan. I played with it long after most kids had moved on!
Thanks Laura. I have this idea for a line of extremely stylish doll houses for design-o-philes. What do you think folks?
Hey, Tate………
I really enjoyed this article and as usual, you have a special way with words!
As you know, Mom was ‘one of a kind’ and I miss her all the time.
I’d love to see the rest of your photos if you want to e-mail them to me.
Love Ya!!………….and Thanks
Hi, Tate, thanks for the tour of Linda’s house. That diner-style kitchen looks great, and yes, you were a total charmer as a baby. Is that you with your mom in th photo above the pencil? That fellow is a handsome rascal…
I’d LOVE a Frank Lloyd Wright or Frank Gehry doll house to go with my Spanish hacienda… Post up some design options for us, please.
All the best for the New Year!
Yep. I friggin love the white dolls head. A few years ago I am amassed a collection of old papier mache doll pieces (heads, arms, feet, hands) and mounted them on black metal museum mounts under large cloche jars. It was stunning but I started to have nightmares of Chuckie coming to get me and sold the whole mess on craigs list to some creepy little fellow. Your white bisque captures it all perfectly without the risk of night terrors.