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JACKSON NEIGHBORS
Sylva woman has first baby (doll) at 70
Eula Brooks never thought getting her first doll would get her in the newspaper.
“I didn’t know it was going to be such a big deal,” she said.
Usually, she’d be right: Most girls don’t see their names in print for such a common thing. But Eula Brooks isn’t most girls. Some of the first dolls she ever saw were in Sears & Roebuck catalogs nearly seven decades ago.
Eula Brooks, left, displays her Christmas doll, which was a gift from granddaughter Karen Reed, right.
A few months back Brooks’ granddaughter, Karen Reed, gave her grandmother a book filled with questions designed to give grandchildren insight into their elders’ lives and times.
When Reed got the book back, one question and answer stood out. The question was “What was your favorite doll or toy?”
“I never had a doll. My brothers would let me play marbles or ride in their wagon,” was Brooks’ answer.
“I had seven brothers and six sisters. We really didn’t need a doll,” she said.
Her granddaughter disagreed.
So last Christmas, when Brooks opened a rather large present from Reed, she was more than a little surprised to find her first doll looking back at her.
“I wasn’t expecting a doll,” Brooks said.
It seemed the only thing to do, Reed said.
“I decided that if I didn’t get anybody anything else for Christmas, I was going to get her a doll,” she said.
Reed had searched until she found toy-aisle perfection. The one she picked so closely resembled herself as a young child you could almost mistake the two, she said.
Having helped raise several of her siblings, there wasn’t much time for dolls in Brooks’ life before.
“I’ve never really been a child,” she said. “A doll means more to a kid than any other toy.”
The power of a doll, no matter what age the recipient, can’t be denied.
While she isn’t pushing it around in a stroller, and she doesn’t brush its shiny blonde hair for fear of ruining its perfect curls, the new toy has had an effect on Brooks.
“I’m getting tired of being an adult,” Brooks said. “I’m a child for the first time at 70 years old.”
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