My Chatty Cathy doll stopped speaking clearly many years ago. Yet my Chatty Cathy looks like the same little girl I fell in love with when I was 5. Wavy blonde hair and bangs frame her face. Freckles run across her nose. Her pink lips are parted, revealing two slightly protruding teeth. I see her now like when I reached out to hug her in the toy store. Maybe I see her even more clearly now. I notice her fingers are gently curved, like human hands, not stiff like many dolls of that era. Chatty Cathy was special in the 1960s—and not only because she was the first talking doll. She was a constant in my turbulent childhood.
I remember the first sighting of my Chatty Cathy. I was in the toy store with my grandmother and mother when I came face to face with her up close and not in a TV commercial. She was a TV celebrity to me. My rapture was only interrupted by my grandmother who announced to the entire toy store, “She’s not a good-looking doll.” I just hugged Chatty Cathy closer to me. How could anyone not see she was beautiful?
Standing on the subway platform returning home, my mother told me to hold her upright. “Don’t cradle her as a newborn,” she urged. Mom warned that I might drop her. But I knew then that I would never let go of this hefty girl.
One day Chatty Cathy disappeared. Tears filled my eyes and my hiccupping sobs started but then Grandmom brought her out from the closet, dressed up in a brand new outfit: a red satin skirt, matching bolero vest and a white blouse with lace around the neck. She was even more stunning and I hoped Grandmom would recognize her beauty, too. This red ensemble is what she has been wearing for over half a century and the only outfit I can now remember.
My Chatty girl has moved with me, let me count, 14 times around my hometown of Philadelphia and later when I moved to Massachusetts. For an entire three years, she was surrounded by boxes in a storage facility when I explored Japan. But as I prepare to downsize, it doesn’t make sense to keep her, does it?
Yet I struggle to give this prized girl away. What is the point of a 65-year-old woman on Medicare keeping a doll in a basement box? I looked online to see if anyone collects these dolls and might care for her. Indeed, a woman aptly named Kathy collects, sells, and even repairs the voice box of Chatty Cathy dolls. I studied the photos on her website and saw many versions of my Chatty Cathy. I wrote to this online Kathy and offered up my Chatty girl.
In my note, I explained that I don’t want any money; I simply couldn’t toss her into a Goodwill bin. I asked Kathy to pay for the shipping and I would send her my doll. Within a day, I received a note and a request for a photo.
I then reached into the box and after so many years, I lifted Chatty Cathy and held her, felt her substance under that red satin dress, and then a peculiar sense of yearning and sadness. This was the doll that held my tears from so many years of childhood pain. There were the usual torments of childhood, but in my family, a brain tumor claimed my father before I turned two, my sister was sickly, in and out of hospitals, and not many years later, my mother died. Chatty Cathy might have been the first talking doll but to me, she was the doll who listened to me. Chatty was there when I needed to be caressed, even if only by a doll.
Did I really want to send Chatty Cathy away? So silly, I chastised myself. With sponge and cleanser, I gently cleaned her little white shoes. Next, I worked on her skin, removing a couple of black smudges from her legs. Her panties and skirt now sag slightly below her exposed belly. I mused that she lost weight over these years.
I took several photos and emailed Kathy. Again, she promptly replied. But this woman—a person who supposedly loves Chatty Cathy dolls—wrote, “She needs help. Her face got pushed in, poor dear. If her body is in excellent condition then maybe (I would take her) depending on where you live…” She also complained that the outfit was wrong; it wasn’t an original Chatty Cathy outfit.
I couldn’t believe this woman was criticizing my beautiful doll. My Chatty Cathy’s face is not pushed in; she’s perfect. This Kathy doesn’t deserve my Chatty girl. Still, I calmed myself and decided to reply. And then, and then, nothing. Kathy didn’t respond to my note. She had simply rejected my Chatty Cathy.
So, here she stays; she is back in her box in my basement and will come with me when I move the next time, and even the next. She is my forever Chatty girl.
Wendy Dodek is a writer and educator who grew up in Philadelphia. Currently living in Massachusetts, her creative nonfiction and poetry have appeared in Memoir Land, Raven’s Perch, Manifest Station, Wry Times, Long Story Short and Topical Poetry. Before the pandemic, she was the Lead Educator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. These days, she shares the art and history of the region with recent arrivals to the U.S.
Object-ives features flash nonfiction essays of 500-999 words on the possessions we can’t stop thinking about.
Recommended reading on possessions:
“The Clothes You Were” by Alexander Chee, The Querent
“To the woman who sent me a Costco haul the day after my kid died” by Unpalatable by Tanja Rohn
“How Many Sweaters Does One Woman Need?” by Andrea Linett, I Want to be Her!
“When my mom died, sorting through her belongings was overwhelming. I’m determined not to burden my children in the same way.” by Linda Wolff, Business Insider
“The Boomer Inheritance Economy gets weird” by Emily Stewart, Business Insider
“Want a Meeting With the Girl Who Invented a Board Game? Get in Line.” by Paul Berger, The Wall Street Journal
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Some things are priceless. As I was reading, I wished you could hear me saying, "Keep her!" Of course, you had already decided to do that by the time I read your story. And, I'm so glad you did.
When I was a kid, my teachers would call me Chatty Cathy. I found out years later this was a standard term for all of us girls-now women of a certain age--who talked more than girls were supposed to talk back in the day. I not only didn't stop talking, I made a living at it for 30 years on the radio. So I guess Chatty Cathy and I were the ones who had the last word!