Heritage Farm’s Bowes Doll & Carriage Museum tells another side of West Virginia history.
From our Spring 2015 Issue
written by Mikenna Pierotti
photographed by Nikki Bowman
It started with a missing link, a blueprint drawn on a dusty tabletop, and a firm handshake. For Don Bowes, his wife Connie, and the late Mike Perry, the exchange was “a classic West Virginia contract,” Don says. “With a lot of faith in two parties’ ability to create a very ambitious project linking several disciplines in relatively uncharted waters.”
The location was an old barn. The two parties in question were the Perry family, the owners of beloved Huntington tourist attraction Heritage Farm Museum and Village, and the Bowes, whose home was full to bursting with Connie’s Victorian and early 20th century-style handcrafted dolls and antique baby carriages. The pact these parties made was to use the Bowes’ doll collection to help tell an often overlooked side of West Virginia history, one in which industries like steam, rail, and glass transformed domestic life from subsistence to opulence and everything in between.
“Heritage Farm already tells a story. It tells the story of rural Appalachian life from log houses on through the development of steam and industry. But when these industries started to take off in the 1890s, the people who had lived on the farms started to gather and many formed successful villages and towns,” Don says. “Our intent was to take the dolls and use them in a way that shows those activities and lifestyles that were the next step. We wanted to answer the question of where all the people who came in and developed into industrialists would have lived. Despite what you might think, they didn’t live in log houses anymore.”
It’s been about three-and-a-half years since Mike, Don, and Connie made their first plans. What was once a dusty old barn tucked into the Heritage Farm’s 500 lush acres now, in 2015, shelters a one-of-a-kind collection of handmade dolls, antique and classic dolls, artistic dolls, and restored antique carriages in a collection called the Bowes Doll & Carriage Museum, just upstairs from the Children’s Activity Museum.
The barn itself is just a shell. Step inside and you’ll find yourself on Main Street in a town sometime in the 1920s or ’30s. All around are a series of artfully arranged vignettes within which dolls and carriages tell the story of early 20th century life. Peek in the windows of a re-created two-story house and you’ll find dolls of all kinds dressed head to toe in handmade costumes, surrounded by details like a sparkling crystal chandelier, gleaming wood balustrades, and period-style furniture. At the end of the street a doll mansion represents the home of the fictional town’s industrial leader. “We opened the doll museum to help show the advantages of being an entrepreneur in Appalachia,” Mike says. “These people opened stores and mills and potteries. They became industrialists. It would not be right for people to think these entrepreneurs lived in primitive houses with the type of primitive clothes and toys you might see in pioneer cabins.”
As a collection, the doll museum represents not only a period of growth in West Virginia history but also a legacy of craftsmanship. Connie’s work creating many of the dolls, their clothes, and accessories as well as Don’s work restoring the carriages proudly carries on this tradition. “Each scene tells a little story in itself,” Don says. “But there’s a larger story. This museum is about dolls and carriages, but you have to ask why they are here and how they tie in. How do they show the progress of Appalachia over the years? For us the challenge was how we tie the dolls and carriages to heritage in a way that shows the growth and evolution in Appalachia.”
As passionate as they are, Don and Connie never imagined opening their own museum, though Connie grew up in New England collecting dolls and doll accessories, some of which her parents had a hand in crafting. But when her mother started expanding her collection to include antique dolls and started making porcelain dolls, Connie decided to sign up for doll-making classes as well. The hobby soon became something of an obsession. After years of instruction, Connie took a chance and entered one of her creations in an international competition. To her surprise, she won several awards. With the addition of that first antique carriage to accompany her growing hobby, the Bowes officially became collectors. For his part, Don, a scientist and career military man, became fascinated by the antique carriages’ construction and began repairing and restoring those the couple found.
The Bowes’ house was very nearly full when the couple met Mike and Henriella Perry after touring Heritage Farm. The two couples shared an appreciation for West Virginia history and traditional crafts, and when Mike saw the Bowes’ collection he knew Heritage Farm could play a role in bringing the dolls to life for the public. “I thought, ‘How many people will ever get to see this?’ It was a small number. But I thought it was so fantastically and beautifully done,” he says.
For Mike the collection was a natural addition to the farm, and it has become one of his favorite attractions. Yet the museum is far from complete. The Perry and Bowes families have big plans to expand the collection and keep it fresh, including the addition of a tearoom in 2015 where visitors can grab a bite in style. Most importantly for Mike, Don, and Connie, however, is the missing link the doll and carriage collection represents for Heritage Farm. In defiance of the eternal pioneer stereotype, the museum shows another side of Appalachian history, industry, and domesticity while proudly carrying on traditional crafts. “It shows phenomenal craftsmanship and pride,” Mike says of the collection. “Those were two characteristics that were important to our ancestors. You can see it in their quilts, their dolls, their handmade musical instruments, and I find it great to see it alive and well with Don and Connie.”
heritagefarmmuseum.com
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