It's Quite A Ride… Stories With Jenn

As a kid of the eighties, one thing I remember wanting more than anything was a Cabbage Patch doll. I saw them on television while watching Saturday morning cartoons. My cousin, that lived across the field, had them all. It sure seemed like it anyway.

I don’t remember now, but I’m certain I asked my mom and dad for one relentlessly. As poor as we were, I think even then I knew I would never get one. It just wasn’t possible. My dad worked his body to the bone every day of his life and always supported our family but something like that was just too excessive and even though I understood, it didn’t keep me from wishing.

Christmas was always the most exciting time of year. Even being from a poor family, my parents made Christmas magical for my brother and I. Many of the things we received each year were homemade. The year I received Carol was no different.

I’ll never forget scrambling up the stairs from my basement room alongside my brother, racing to see what was under the Christmas tree. The moment I saw her, my heart leapt with joy! My wonderful mother had made me my very own Cabbage Patch doll! I loved her. I named her Carol.

I carried Carol everywhere. I played with her for years, braiding her yarn hair, and changing her clothes, usually my old clothes I’d cut up and make fit her somehow.

Even as I passed the age where I played with dolls, she was a treasure among my possessions. Inevitably, children grow up and time goes by. Some things don’t seem as important as they once were, and somehow I lost track of Carol.

Many years later, an adult woman with grown children, I began to wonder about Carol. I had told my children stories about her over the years but when I tried to remember where she might have ended up, I realized I had no clue. I was hopeful she was still somewhere in my parents’ house but was sad to hear my mom hadn’t seen her in many years.

During that conversation, my mom told me something about Carol that I didn’t know. My aunt, the mother to the cousin with all of the purchased Cabbage Patch dolls, had helped my mom make my cabbage patch doll for me. Mom said she didn’t know how to sew dolls so my aunt sewed the doll and then mom sewed on her hair and made her clothes. Carol was always special but somehow that made here even more special, but I had no idea where she was.

I lost my dad in 2022 and my mom in 2025. When my husband and I moved into my childhood home, I kept an eye out for Carol as I went room by room, sorting through the years and years of belongings my parents had accumulated. Carol was nowhere to be found.

I truly began to lose hope. Carol was gone and I was so upset with myself for not taking better care of her.

Living in the country, being raised by parents who held onto everything, there were plenty of outbuildings and places for them to store stuff. One such place was a single wide trailer house they had used to store things they didn’t have room for in their house but didn’t want to get rid of. Over the years, the condition of the trailer had deteriorated to the point it was almost not safe to go into it. The ceiling was caving in and the weather and animas had gotten to almost everything that was stored there. As a last ditch effort, I went inside, dug through boxes, crawled under the sagging roof, hoping against hope that somehow Carol might be in there somewhere.

I had gone through everything I was able to get to and almost gave up. Then, in a bedroom closet, on the floor, but somehow mostly protected from the elements that had attacked the rest of the trailer, I saw her!!!

I scooped her up and took her home. I was completely over the moon! Carol got an immediate bath and then I sat down to remove and redo her hair that was coming out. I found her new clothes and placed her safely in my bedroom.

I have so little left from my childhood but having Carol back makes everything feel good again. My mom and aunt poured so much love into Carol and I will never take that for granted again. I am truly blessed.