DOLLS

At the final banquet at Modern Doll Collectors Convention this fall in Win­ston- Salem, N.C., I had the good fortune of sitting next to doll artist Berdine Creedy of Berdine Creedy Original Dolls. During dinner, she spoke of her charitable commitment to Beautiful Gate in Lesotho (www.beautifulgate.org), located in her native South Africa, and I left that meal thoroughly inspired by her dedication to those less fortunate than herself.

She Reigned Among Wet-and-Drink Dolls for Two Decades

Probably few people ever experience the spectrum of emotions on both sides of the adoption process like Mary Beth Wells. Her anguish ranged from making the pain­ful decision as a young unwed teen to give up a birth child to a couple who could better care for her, to discovering, years later as a married woman who longed for a family, she could no longer have a child of her own. Then she moved through the slow, nail-biting process of adopting a daughter from Guatemala.