BEMIDJI — If only dolls could talk.
A hand-crafted clay doll created as a gift 24 years ago has found its way back to its maker through a fortuitous series of events. It now rests on the dresser of the 24-year-old girl whose mother made it.
ADVERTISEMENT
The circuitous story involves a doll maker from Pennington, a quilter, a mystery person, and the owner of an antique mall in Bemidji.
An early start
Delight Sporre remembers falling in love with dolls as a child. She collected them and even started making her own out of anything she could find, like sticks and acorns. After getting an antique doll from her grandmother, Delight took even more of an interest.
“I started really researching antique dolls,” she said. “Then my mom and I started going to antique doll shows together and collecting them. I got to meet other doll artists. I learned what kind of clay to use and how it was done. Then I knew at the young age of 14 that’s what I wanted to do.”
By the time she was 16, Delight was sculpting clay dolls and making porcelain reproduction dolls on the side.
“So I had a doll business before I graduated from high school,” she said.
That business continued after graduation when Delight married Mike Sporre. Her creations were featured in national magazines. The couple took annual trips to the East Coast to attend a large doll show and to meet with doll store owners.
ADVERTISEMENT
“That’s where the market was for these dolls,” Delight said. “Doll shops were really popular then.”
The shops would place orders, and Delight would fill those orders by staying up until the early morning hours making dolls. It was a busy time for the Sporres, who welcomed the first of their 10 children while living in their home area near the Twin Cities.
They moved to Pennington in 1991 and bought a house next door to Kitchi Pines Mennonite Church. Delight continued making dolls until the economy slowed in 1999 and 2000.
“That really affected things like (the doll market),” she said, “because they were not essential things.”
But fellow church members certainly noticed Delight’s talent, and one of them asked if she would make a doll in exchange for a hand-made quilt.
“This was 24 years ago, after my second daughter Esther was born,” Delight said. When she finished the doll, the quilter who received it noticed a resemblance between the doll and little Esther.
“She looks so much like your little girl,” the woman told Delight. “When I die this should go back to her.”
ADVERTISEMENT
The woman died some years later, but Delight never heard anything about the doll, and didn’t even know how to contact the family.
“It was just lost,” she said.
But now it was found
Jan Burger loves to go to auction sales. About 20 years ago she went to a sale in the Clearbrook area and noticed several dolls that were up for auction.
“But this doll spoke to me,” Burger said. “We really don’t know how it got to that sale and that person. So I bought it, and she has sat on a dresser in my guest room ever since.”
Burger is the owner of the First City Antique Mall, which opened last year at 120 Minnesota Ave. NW in Bemidji. Mike and Delight Sporre opened a booth in the mall a few months ago, and when Burger saw some of the dolls that Delight brought in to sell, she stopped in her tracks.
“I looked at her little pixie dolls and I said to (my husband) Bud, ‘I think I have one of her dolls,’” Burger shared. “I brought my doll in, and I moved some things in her cabinet and I set the doll there with the little ones. Then I showed it to Bud, because he’s an artist, and asked what he thought. He said, ‘It’s the same artist.’”
Shortly after that, when Delight and some of her children came to the antique mall, they were in for a surprise.
ADVERTISEMENT
“Oh my goodness. Yes, that’s my doll,” Delight said.
Her daughter Esther was with Delight that day. Although she had only seen the doll that looked like her when she was an infant, Esther was told about it and occasionally asked her mother where she thought the doll might be.
Jan Burger was so touched by the story that she decided to give the doll to Esther.
“These things are gifts of the heart,” Burger said. “It’s all about how life comes in this circle, and you never know when you will find someone again. For me, this was just so beautiful, and I thought this doll had to go back to the little girl who was supposed to have it.”
“Esther could hardly believe it,” Delight said. “But even more amazing is that Jan ended up with it and so generously wanted to give the doll to her. She was so happy that now she would actually be able to keep it and one day pass it on to her children. She has it lovingly displayed on her dresser now and it will remain an heirloom in the family.”
The Trust Project
