SOUTH LYON — Ruth Chase never had dolls as a child; instead, she raised brothers and sisters as the oldest girl in a family of 11 children.
As an adult, she made up for a missing part of childhood by collecting more than 100 dolls, with an emphasis on Barbies. Even at the age of 90, as her health was failing in 2021, she asked her daughter for the gift of a Holiday Barbie at Christmas, going so far as to point out Target had a sale on the doll.
“She enjoyed that doll for nine months before she died,” Paula Klawender recalled through tears. “This was a woman who never got out of her room, but she enjoyed her dolls ’til the end.”
Klawender recently donated 57 dolls from her mom’s collection to the Center for Active Adults, and hopes someone else will buy and adore them as much as her mother did.
Besides the iconic Mattel toy that has seen an increase in interest with the release of the Barbie movie last year, the center is now in possession of more than 300 dolls, mostly donated by Klawender and Lori Weiland, that will be auctioned Feb. 1-5.