LITTLE ROCK — Roxanna Cole made cloth dolls, or rag dolls, as they were more commonly called, all her life. But it wasn't until after the Civil War when she had moved to Conway in about 1880 with her family that she began to make dolls to sell to the public.

Born Roxanna Elizabeth McGee on Aug. 3, 1825, in Tennessee, she died in November 1907 in Conway and is buried alongside her husband, William Russell Cole, in Oak Grove Cemetery. He died in 1891. It was their son, William Douglas Cole and his wife, Mollie Hunt, who came to Conway with them.

Roxanna's dolls, which numbered more than 1,000, are well-known in the world of doll collectors, with several on display in the Wenham Museum in Massachusetts.Two of her dolls now have a home in Arkansas at Historic Museum of Arkansas in Little Rock.

Robin H. Bailey, Roxanna's great-great-granddaughter, traveled recently from her home in Walnut Creek, Calif., to Arkansas to meet relatives and to donate the dolls to the Little Rock museum. She was accompanied by her nephew, Rick Jamsgard or Snohomish, Wash., who is a great-greatgreat-grandson of the doll maker.

While in Little Rock, Bailey visited with several other descendants of Roxanna, including great-great-grandson Daniel Allen of Conway, who lives with his wife, Nancy, and their children, Daniel and Victoria, in the house where Roxanna's grandson,William Daniel Cole, lived with his wife, Nell East; great-great-granddaughter Martha Barber of Little Rock, who had already donated needlework by Roxanna to the museum; and great-greatgrandson David Harton Newbern of Little Rock and his son David Gordon Newbern, a great-great-great-grandson of the doll maker.

The family visited Roxanna's grave in Conway, and placed an arrangement of pink roses to denote the occasion. "We came here to markthe centennial of her death," Bailey explained. "And to return the dolls from whence they came. The dolls are part of Roxanna and they belong in the state where she lived out her life. The whole reason for this trip is the dolls."

Bailey said the dolls - a portrait doll of Roxanna and a baby doll - as well as many letters written during the Civil War era had been in her possession for some time, given to her by her father, the late Hugh Hall.

"I've been trying to put my things in order," said Bailey, who has had some health problems during the last few years. "I knew the dolls had some monetary value, but more important to me was that they be preserved. Dad had originally planned to donate them to a museum in San Francisco, but they weren't interested. And there was certainly no interest in the Civil War letters in California, so Dad just kept them."

Bailey had posted a queryon the Internet, and Nancy Allen was "Googling on genealogy sites" and she wrote Bailey. "Robin wrote right back and we corresponded for two or three years," Nancy Allen said. "Then my computer crashed and we lost touch with each other." They were able to reconnect, however, and Bailey made plans to come to Arkansas.

Bailey had the dolls appraised and they were appraised at $4,500 and $5,000 each. She also sent four letters for appraisal. "They wereappraised at between $1,200 and $1,500," Bailey said. "And the appraiser said that was a very conservative estimate."

"Roxanna Cole represents an aspect of our Arkansasmade heritage that is so easy to lose," said Bill Worthen, director, Historic Arkansas Museum. "We owe her family a debt of thanks for keeping alive the knowledge of her outstanding abilities, and for donating examples of her handiwork to the museum. Historic Arkansas Museum has spent the past 20 yearsdocumenting and collecting the work of Arkansas' artists and artisans, and this is our first acquisition of Cole material. We are very pleased.

"Roxanna Cole's dolls have become quite collectable over the years," Worthen added. "She is featured in the Ultimate Doll Book and several of her dolls are in the well-known doll collection of the Wenham Museum in Massachusetts. The needlework donated by Ms. Barber illustrates nursery rhymes on linen napkins. The dolls are currently being processed into the collection and are not yet on display at the museum."

River Valley Ozark, Pages 67, 70 on 05/17/2007