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Skyland Care Center resident is on doll-making mission
By Carey King
Give ’em those little dolls in the name of the Lord,” 73-year-old Clara Rogers tells visitors to her room at Skyland Care Center.
That’s after she instructs them to rummage through a drawer crammed full of orange, purple, green and white yarn creations to pick out a few to take to friends, family and people they meet on the street.
“Yarn dolls, I call ’em. But most people around here call ’em ’angels,’” Rogers said.
Visitors to resident Clara Rogers’ room at Skyland Care Center are sent home with hands and pockets full of her colorful yarn doll creations. “I give ’em for the Lord,” Rogers said.
A native of Madison County and a longtime resident of Haywood County, Rogers moved to Sylva several years ago to be closer to her daughter, Ronda Owen, who lives in Canada community. It was then she remembered a craft she learned long ago from her grandmother.
“I just got to thinking about it one day and decided I wanted to make a doll like she taught me,” Rogers said. “For about two years now I’ve been a-doing it.”
Hour after hour, with a skein of yarn by her side, Rogers wraps string around a small cardboard card, then twists, ties and cuts, finishing on average about a dozen dolls each day.
“You just keep adding and crossing and crossing, and then it all works,” said 73-year-old Clara Rogers as she demonstrated the craft that’s made her famous at Skyland Care Center – the brightly-colored, palm-sized yarn dolls she gives to fellow residents, nurses, and visitors, plus sends on mission trips around the world.
“How fast I make ’em is according to what kind of mood I’m in,” Rogers said. She’s not sure of her total doll tally, but can rattle off a list of all the places they’ve been sent: to children at various churches, to disaster victims in Mexico, to workers at coal mines in Virginia.
“I send ’em in grocery bags. You take one of those grocery bags and they hold about 50,” Rogers said.
A visitor once offered $5 for a pair of the dolls, but Roger prefers to keep her craft a non-profit affair, thinking instead of the joy her gifts create.
“I give ’em for the Lord. I think Jesus is wonderful,” she said.
Rogers also stays on task out of habit – a life of hard work that’s included picking tobacco and milking cows, “sometimes by hand.”
Her mother died when she was 9 years old, leaving her father with two daughters and three sons to raise. They lived at Pink Beds and worked for Champion Paper.
“I’ve helped my daddy saw wood with a crosscut saw, two on a side, you know. They didn’t have power saws back then. That’s the only power we had,” Rogers said.
She scrubbed her clothes on a washboard until her husband, James Jackson Rogers, bought their growing family a washing machine. That eased the work a little, but it still took a great deal of effort to bring up the four children who’ve now given her seven grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.
“I’d rather be working at something,” Rogers said. “I can’t hardly set there without having something to do.”
The doll-making has given Rogers quite a reputation at Skyland, where nearly every room and office has at least two or three dangling like Christmas ornaments from doors, beds and lamps.
“I’ve been wearing it like a badge of honor since she gave it to me,” said nurse Carol Hensley, who sports a white doll on her belt. “I’ve got several but I like this white one. It matches my outfit.”
Robbie Smith, Skyland’s activities director, does her best to keep Rogers stocked with yarn.
“I go on Fridays and get at least 19 or 20 skeins. She tells me all the colors to buy. I’ve got a list,” Smith said.
Rogers prefers Red Heart brand, though she’ll take donations from anyone who’s cleaning out their craft drawers. She’s hoping this story will prompt area residents to do a little spring cleaning.
“Maybe I’ll get swamped with yarn. That would be the best,” Rogers said.
Skyland always welcomes gifts of craft supplies, musical instruments, games – anything that can help residents stay active and creative, Smith said. If you have an item to donate, call her at 586-8935.
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