Wilma Schubert is crabby with the Peoria Riverfront Museum. So are her
roommates.
And she has a lot of them. To be exact, 4,715.
They are her dolls, which fill most of her sharp ranch home in Far North
Peoria.
PHOTO/ LESLIE RENKEN/ JOURNAL STAR
Wilma Schubert has been collecting dolls since 1962 and has
exactly 4,714 dolls in her collection. Schubert recently decided that the
collection is getting too big for her home and is hoping to donate to an area
museum or hospital.
Wilma Schubert is crabby with the Peoria Riverfront Museum. So are her
roommates.
And she has a lot of them. To be exact, 4,715.
They are her dolls, which fill most of her sharp ranch home in Far North
Peoria.
"They're beautiful," the 80-year-old widow says matter-of-factly. "If you
have dolls, you are never lonely."
But they need a new home. Schubert has run out of room for them, and she
would like to find a suitable spot to which she could will her collection. Her
first choice would be the new museum, but the dolls have been turned
away.
"They told me it doesn't fit the motif," Schubert says, voice rising. "It
just kind of burned me up to have Richard Pryor in the museum and not my
dolls."
You can decide whether the museum would be the right spot. I don't know if
that's the type of attraction that would lure tourism. Still, you have to admire
someone who gets so feisty over her hobby that she is willing to yell at
politicians and business executives, even going so far as to bark at the City
Council.
Doll collecting is a latter-day hobby for Schubert. Six years ago, she had
just 100 dolls - a sizeable number for most people, but just a few shelves'
worth of space at her place.
But in 2005, her second husband passed away. Though an active gardener and
seamstress, she started to find enjoyment in dolls. She bought some at stores,
but many at yard sales and second-hand shops.
By her admission, it became an addiction. Slowly, dolls took over her home.
They fill couches, shelves, floors, beds, counters and any other available space
throughout the house.
There are celebrities: Princess Di, Michelle Obama, Marie Osmond. Cartoons:
Minnie Mouse, Raggedy Anne, Betty Boop. Miscellaneous: a surfer, a mermaid,
Kabuki dancers. Ninety-two Barbies. Sixty Cabbage Patch dolls. Several Elvises
(Elvii?).
At a small table, two cats drink tea while two dogs play poker.
A few are an inch tall. Some are as big as children.
The only doll-less rooms are the kitchen and one bathroom; Schubert even
shares her bed with dolls.
(But not teddy bears, which are downstairs. She has 200 of them, but they're
not part of the official doll count because they're bears not dolls.)
Most of the dolls are girls. A pair of naked, beat-up baby dolls survive from
her childhood. Two porcelain dolls date to the 1800s.
Her favorite is a Katherine Anne doll, a brunette the size of a toddler,
which she got in 1962 for $300.
"I had a little girl who passed away," she says, lightly brushing the doll's
hair with her hand. "So I saw this doll in Peoria in the window at Block and
Kuhl's. It looked just like her. So this is her."
Though room is at a premium, everyone is happy with the set-up - except
Schubert's Pomeranians, Lil Leo and Leo. The pooches, which won the Journal
Star's Pet Idol contest in 2008 and 2009, would love to tear into the dolls. So,
Schubert takes great pains to keep the dogs away.
"They have a separation issue," she says with a laugh.
Schubert sometimes takes dolls out for visits. She often will visit nursing
homes, bringing her dolls and lecturing on their history.
"The residents enjoy it," she says.
By the beginning of last year, Schubert had amassed 2,600 dolls. The house
growing cramped, she vowed to stop buying more. She failed.
"I was gonna quit, but I couldn't," she says with a smile. "I just
couldn't."
The house now brims with 4,715 dolls, as of Wednesday. But she swears she is
done buying more. She might have little choice this time.
"I've run out of room," she says with a shrug.
Schubert says she doesn't have an estimated value for the collection. But she
is willing to give them away free - to the right place.
Her three adult children don't want the dolls. So Schubert wants to find a
new place. She says there are no doll museums in the state, and she wants to
keep them in Illinois.
So, she has pushed to put the dolls in the new museum. She has spoken loud
and long before the City Council. She has called Caterpillar Inc. She has talked
to Lakeview Museum.
The response every time: thanks, but no thanks.
The riverfront museum will have a set criteria for exhibits, says Nikki Cole,
Lakeview's vice president of development. Right now, Lakeview accepts donations
of fine art, decorative art and folk art, along with examples of natural
science. The dolls do not fit within those parameters.
Schubert finds that view shortsighted.
"What are they gonna have that's beautiful?" she says. "What are they gonna
have for children to look at?"
Meanwhile, perhaps there is a better solution. Ideas? Again, Schubert wants
to keep them local, so keep that in mind. "I want them to stay in Peoria," she
says.
PHIL LUCIANO is a columnist with the Journal Star. He can be reached at
pluciano@pjstar.com, 686-3155 or (800) 225-5757, Ext. 3155. Luciano co-hosts
"The Markley & Luciano Show" from 5:30 to 9 a.m.
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