Julda Call has a real DOLL HOUSE

La Crosse Tribune, May 07, 2001 by Cahalan, Steve

VIROQUA, Wis. - The doll lady of Westby has become the doll museum owner of Viroqua.

Julda Call and her daughter, Faith, operate Call's House of Dolls in their home at 767 N. Main St., along Hwy. 14/61 in Viroqua. Julda bought the house last June, and the museum opened in September.

The museum, which features Call's collection of about 300 dolls, began its second season May 1. Call made most of the dolls in her collection and bought the rest.

Call, 82, has been collecting and making dolls since 1969. When she began, she and her husband, Norris Call, operated a dairy farm near West Prairie and Liberty Pole in Vernon County.

Call said her collection started with the Ecuadorian girt doll that Faith needed for show and tell at school. Call bought the doll at a dime store in Viroqua and made an Ecuadorian outfit for it.

She has been making, buying and collecting dolls ever since. "Winter time was a good time to make them," she said, when she lived on the farm. "It's a hobby," she said. "After it starts, it eats you up. You can't stop."

Call and her husband sold their farm and moved to Westby in 1978, and he died in 1995. Call sold their Westby home and moved to an apartment in Viroqua in 1999, before buying her Viroqua house last summer.

During her years in Westby, Call kept her dolls on display on basement shelves for friends and relatives to see. "I never showed the dolls in my basement to the public, because it was a basement," she said. But she displayed some of her dolls at presentations and other special events. She started the Nordic Doll Club in Westby and still belongs to it as well as the Wisconsin, Iowa & Minnesota Doll Club.

Call's First Lady doll collection - dolls representing four U.S. presidents and 26 first ladies - have been on display in Viroqua, Westby and more recently at the Little Falls Railroad & Doll Museum in Cataract. The First Lady collection was on display at the Cataract museum for about two years, until last year.

Having dolls on display in Cataract gave Call the idea for her new business. "I had the First Lady dolls at the Cataract doll museum and thought I might as well have my museum, just to show my dolls to people," she said.

"I like to meet people," Call said of the museum's visitors. "It's interesting listening to them."

"And you learn from them," her daughter Faith added. "A lot of them are doll collectors."

Call started her museum last fall with help from Larry Salm, job and business developer with the Wisconsin Coulee Region Community Action Program.

Call enjoys telling visitors about the history of each of her dolls, especially the First Lady collection and the presidents and first ladies the dolls depict.

"I put a lot of work into that one," she said of the porcelain doll she made of Harriet Lane, who was the niece of President James Buchanan and served as his White House hostess. He was the only president who never married, Call said.

She plans to add to the First Lady collection but doesn't make - or repair as many dolls as she used to. She no longer makes ceramic or porcelain dolls, which require using molds.

Call started a doll-repair service after obtaining a certificate of proficiency in doll technology in 1967. She received the certificate for completing a correspondence course.

She still sells doll supplies, such as hats, wigs, socks, shoes and doll stands. But she hasn't sold entire dolls, except for some cloth dolls she made and sold in the early 1980s to co-workers at a Viroqua nursing home, where she was a nurse's aide.

Call's collection includes a wide variety of dolls such as plastic, porcelain, ceramic, vinyl, rags, cloth, clay, wood, bisque, sculpture, molded, China, fashion, antique and modern. They're displayed atop chairs, benches, counters, tables and shelves in three rooms on Call's house.

The collection features several bride dolls and many "culture dolls" depicting the people of such nations as Norway, Germany, Finland, Denmark, Greenland, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico, India, Thailand, Korea, Hungary and Japan.

Some of the dolls are especially familiar to visitors - such as the Barbie dolls, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Babe Ruth, Campbell's Soup dolls, Chatty Cathy and the First Lady collection.

Others are more rare. Some of Call's dolls were made in the late 1800s.

Some of the oldest dolls are dressed in clothing that has deep sentimental value to Call. One is dressed in a baby dress that her late husband wore sometime after his birth in 1916.