She didn't have many dolls or teddy bears when she was growing up. But now in her late 60s, Susan Quinlan has made up for that childhood scarcity, amassing a treasure-trove of dolls and bears which she has gathered into one of the largest museum collections in the U.S.
A stroll through the Susan Quinlan Doll and Teddy Bear museum and library in Santa Barbara, Calif., not only brings back childhood memories of dolls, teddy bears and favorite bedtime stories, but offers a glimpse of one-of-a-kind and limited edition teddy bears and dolls with an emphasis on the California artists who created them.
Along the way, visitors also get an enjoyable lesson about California history, with dolls and bears arranged by the ethnic groups — among them Native-Americans, Russians, Chinese, Japanese and blacks — that helped settle the state.
There are, of course, the ubiquitous Barbie dolls and Cabbage Patch Kids. But along with those there are cloth, composition and wooden dolls, dolls which date back 100 years and befitting California, a host of celebrity dolls including Elvis, James Dean, Cher, Audrey Hepburn, Lucy and Frank Sinatra. There are also a large assortment of teddy bears, including an entire selection devoted to Teddy Roosevelt.
"I tried to make a bear once," Quinlan admits. "That's why I really appreciate what bear artists do. I'm just in awe of what they do."
Her bear collection includes examples from both manufacturers, among them Steiff, to individual artists such as Martha Leeds, Francisco Carreno Stewart, Martha Burch, Denis Shaw, Cindy McGuire, Ethel Hughes and Robert Raikes, who started out making bears with wooden faces.
The bears include one-of-a-kind prize winners from the annual Teddy Bear Artist Invitational and even a bear designed by the late actor Larry Linville, who played Major Frank Burns on the popular television series M*A*S*H.
Quinlan says bears designed by bear artists are of particular interest to her since each one is created individually.
"They have to create their own patterns and they have to make each one different if it's one-of-a-kind," she explains.
Selecting bears for her collection is no easy task.
"There's always the one that looks at you and says 'take me home' and you have to take it home," she says.
"Even art museums are beginning to recognize that dolls and bears are works of art," she says, noting that Leeds was commissioned to create 12 bears for the Louvre. "I look at them as works of art but most people approach them as toys. I have trouble with this because I feel they are just such wonderful artworks."
While Quinlan looks for unusual bears and dolls, she also tries to focus on California artists.
"I like one-of-a-kind or limited edition items," Quinlan says. "The other thing I tried to do that I thought might make the museum a little different was to emphasize California doll makers and teddy bear makers. I haven't come across a lot of museums that emphasize their state to people. We also present a little of the state's history. So I gave it a California bent."
The museum, located just two blocks off Santa Barbara's main drag, is open to the public Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday (admission is US$6.50 for adults, US$3.50 for pre-teens). A reference library containing some 10,000 books, which Quinlan says is the largest known collection of books on dolls, doll houses and teddy bears, is open to researchers by appointment. The library also boasts a large collection of books on toys, puppets and costumes.
Quinlan will, if requested, provide a running commentary to museum visitors about the 2,500 dolls and 500 teddy bears currently on display. What is obvious is that this former librarian — one of her last positions was head of the education library which included the children's collection at San Francisco State University — not only is the doyen of dolls and bears, but that she truly loves each and every item in her collection.
For Quinlan, creating the 10,000-square-foot museum has truly been a labor of love.
"Oh yes, I love it," Quinlan admits while sitting in the museum's tea room, where she serves up tea, coffee and cookies to museum visitors. The walls of the room are adorned with colorful murals of a doll and teddy bear tea party and picnic with the ocean and mountains in Santa Barbara as backdrops.
A gift shop, offering books, dolls, teddy bears and other collectibles is located just behind the tea room.
Opening of the museum in Santa Barbara, a popular tourist destination about 100 miles north of Los Angeles, was a homecoming of sorts for Quinlan. She moved to Santa Barbara as a youngster and attended junior high and high school in the town. After she was married, she moved to San Francisco, where she lived for 35 years. After taking early retirement, she and her husband returned to Santa Barbara around 1999-2000 with the intention of setting up the museum.
"I had just been collecting and collecting and collecting, so my husband one day finally said, 'I think we need to find a place to put all this,'" she recalled. "So we started looking."
Her interest in dolls began in San Francisco when she and a friend started a doll club and eventually launched a small weekend business going to doll shows where she would buy and sell items. She began collecting dolls in 1979.
"As I expanded the doll collection, I began going into teddy bears as well," she says. "There are fewer teddy bears here because they came in later. But I love them both."
Her interest in doll and teddy bear books came about after she won a raffle at a doll show. The prize was a set of Golden Books about dolls.
"Being a librarian, I thought this would be a nice side interest," Quinlan says. "After all, how many books can there be about dolls? I thought I'd start collecting them. Now I've got 10,000 books on dolls, doll houses and teddy bears.
"There were more than I ever dreamt there would be," she says with a laugh.
Combining her love of books with dolls and bears is seen in a large display case that contains two Hildegard Gunzel dolls of a mother reading to her daughter. Quinlan uses a quote from Strickland Gillian's poem, The Reading Mother, to sum up her feelings:
"You may have tangible wealth untold
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be —
I had a mother who read to me."
The museum opened at the end of December 2005, although Quinlan puts the official date at January 2006.
"Not only do I find absolutely wonderful treasures as far as dolls and bears, but the people involved in this whole thing are such wonderful people," she says. "As you get to know the artists, they are just so nice. Their creativity just astounds me. I cannot believe what they can do taking simple materials and creating actual works of art out of them."
She readily explains what makes the bears so popular.
"They're such comfort toys," she says. "You can hug them. You can tell them everything in the world, all your secrets. They just have wonderful expressions on their faces; this is true of dolls, also. Both of them can become confidants and companions."
Dolls and bears on display from California artists include the Nancy Ann Storybook dolls, Scarey Ann wooden dolls and Teddy Rushkin. The Scarey Ann dolls feature a lever that when pushed down causes the hair on the doll's head to stand up straight in fright. The doll's were marketed as "America's famous hair raising doll."
"Mine's eternally scared," Quinlan says, pointing out the doll's permanently raised mane.
There are, of course, Barbie dolls from Mattel.
Because she didn't have room for all her Barbies, Quinlan put up the ones that she thought best reflected the California lifestyle.
"There's the glamour of Hollywood, the sophistication of San Francisco and the casual Malibu lifestyle," she says.
There are also older dolls, some of which date back 100 years. Among the most popular of that era, which she compares to the popularity of Cabbage Patch dolls, was the Bi-Lo bisque head doll.
Displays also feature books that feature dolls and bears or which have spun off those products. Among them: Goldilocks and Three Bears, The Wizard of Oz, Mary Poppins, Winnie the Pooh, the Care Bears and Madeline. There's even a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde doll, which switches personalities with a twist of its head.
There are also dolls and bears with California connections: Ronald Reagan, Beanie Babies (creator Ty Warner lives in the Santa Barbara area) and Sambos, whose sole restaurant is still operating in Santa Barbara.
For boys "who get dragged in here kicking and screaming," Quinlan gets them interested in the "space section" which features robots, Flash Gordon, Star Trek and Star Wars in story form. There are also Power Rangers, Mr. Machine, Harry Potter and his friends and characters from the motion picture Independence Day highlighted by the destruction of Los Angeles.
The museum also includes a display of puppets and a small variety of sewing machines, including one which Quinlan's mother used to make doll clothes.
"I learned on it and I loved that machine," she says.
Quinlan has more dolls and bears in storage, among them American Gothic teddy bears, that she hopes to eventually put on display as more display cases are constructed. She admits that she never tires of walking through the museum or talking to visitors about her collection.
"I love to go around (the museum) because it gives me a chance to see all my things," she says.
She won't say which specific dolls or bears are her favorites but admits that "there are certain ones that I love the most. If there was a fire, I know which ones I'd grab first."
As she strolls through the museum on a day when she normally isn't at the facility, Quinlan notices that a few of the dolls and bears have toppled over in their display cases. She hints that there may be more to it than what meets the eye.
"Oh, he's fallen over," she says, looking at one of the dolls. "He didn't make it back in time today. I found a few that didn't make it back. They didn't expect me in."
