A little Girl’s Heart’s Desire
As a small girl, you can’t express in words what really matters. Looking back at your life you know that you had a clear understanding of what really meant something. The explanation on this comes in three different descriptions and small glimpses of what I mean.
Dagny was the tenths child from quite a poor family in the countryside in Denmark. She is my husband’s mother’s sister and the last living of her many siblings. The family had lost a home as her father had cautioned for a brother in a situation with a farm. I am sure the children weren’t used to having toys. I had heard a story about a doll and Dagny, and at a party not long ago I asked her about it.
Dagny and the doll
One of my older sisters was married to Luis, a Spanish sailor who once brought a big and lovely doll from a trip to England. His children were too small to enjoy the doll so I, then six years old in 1938, was allowed to have the doll. In March 1940 his ship was torpedooed in The Atlantic Ocean and Uncle Luis lost his life. My mother told me to give the doll to Luis’s girls who now ought to have the doll. In tears I walked the long way to my cousins and gave it back. Later at a visit to my smaller cousins I found that my doll had been changed into a boy doll and I was not sure that they even cared about the doll. My mother never mentioned the sitiation again.
Henry, my husband, did a post on his uncle Luis on a Danish trade ship on its way to Marocco was torpedoed by a German submarine even before Denmark was engaged in the war. The article is in Danish and can be Google translated on the page if you are interested to read about him.
I have a friend from Copenhagen who is six years older than I. She had some lovely toys that I would have loved to have had. We have known each other for the last 22 years, and she has told me a lot about her childhood. She felt that her mother hated her. If she wanted to play the flute as her brother she had to play the piano instead. As a very young child, she said she wanted to become a nurse, and her mother kept on reminding her even though her interests showed to be completely different. She was forced into the nursing school and had to leave shortly after the start. Her mother never understood her, and she fled her parents by marrying very early. Her husband was a worse tyrant than her mother, and later he became psychotic and lives in a nursing home for mentally ill people.
Anne-Marie is a weaver and creates carpets. The photos don’t show that she as a girl was lonely and unhappy. She seems to have had beautiful clothes and beautiful toys, but the emotional scars have never left her. If old photos have your interest, I made a post from her early childhood in the days of the liberation May 1945.
A.M. and her doll pram and composition doll
A.M. and composition doll and a cousin
A.M.’s cane doll’s pram
I knew that my mother loved me and I also knew that she couldn’t buy me the things as shown in Anne-Marie’s photos. I dreamt of waking up with a doll and a pram or cradle like Anne-Marie’s.
Today I am so grateful that I knew that my mother loved me unconditionally also when I was a teenager and became very challenging. Here a few posts about my father. My mother. More on my mother And on my homes
Me and my doll July 1957
To compensate for the missing baby dolls and prams, I have a collection now similar to a toy museum.
What is the ideal childhood? You are secure in the love of your parents and you get some of your desires of your heart?
Modern day parents know more about children’s needs today than before but I still think that the ideal is hard to find and if you receive all your deepest wishes it might be challenging to be an adult and manage life?
Categories: Baby care, Children, Family history
From one Heart to Another 
How nice of him to give you the doll. I can see it meant a lot to you.
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Thank for reading my post. Maybe I was unclear as it was Dagny, Henry’s aunt from 1932 who got the doll from Spanish Luis. I am with a doll from my parents at the last picture twenty years later
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Oops.
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Love these old photos.
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Thank you so much Judy. The old photos need to come out from dark drawers
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You are right about the photos. When we revisit the past we understand it so much better
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Thank you Paula
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I know that we didn’t have many toys when we were young but I also know that as we all became more affluent we seemed to give our children more and more and I don’t think they ever appreciated them
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So true and maybe they missed something else than we did. To be really happy for just one thing is also valuable and creates a kind of faithfulness I think
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I agree
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The unconditional love of a parent for their child is THE MOST IMPORTANT element is raising a well balanced adult.
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So true Bernadette. The sad thing is that sometimes children turn out in such a different version than the parents that they are not understood. My friend’s mother made nice clothes to the dolls and for A.M. but she felt utterly rejected first by her mother and then at school for being “dumb” / had dyslexia without knowing it
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I love these old photographs. They bring back memories of dolls of my childhood, and the clothese I sewed and knitted for them. How I wish I had kept them all…
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I would have loved to have seen them. When I stopped playing with my few dolls I sewed clothes for them and later for myself
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I only remember one doll, I was given it at a Christmas party although I was a little too old. Probably as well that I was, my youngest brother took it to bed with him that night and I never had hold of it again! Lovely photos.
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Ohh your little brother thought it was his
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Thank you for liking the photos. I have a weak point for old photos and want to share. Sometimes it’s the same photos
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Loved this post. I think we all want what we can’t have. I was fortunate in my parents. My father was very stern but Mother very loving and warm.
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Like my parents. You have stories from your childhood too ? I would like to read them ❤️
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The eldest of five children, I was blessed to have loving parents. Those memories linger on…
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So lovely to hear that Bette. I had too but my father had emotional problems from his youth and his doctor gave him sleeping pills and tranquilizers from his young age during the war which had an impact on me.
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Vi skal ikke mange år tilbage, før vi møder stor fattigdom. Hvor må det have været smerteligt for den lille Dagny at give sit “barn” fra sig, man følte jo stor kærlighed til sin dukke. Barndommen præger os for livet, vi har ønsker, du drømte om en dukkevogn og en babydukke, det fik du ikke, og det var en slags sorg, men vigtigst af alt er det, at føle sig elsket, som du så rigtig skriver❤️
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Det er så sandt. Vi besøgte Dagny på Lolland og hun har lidt under den fattigdom og det har sat sine spor
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