I always wanted to restore a trailer and figured I’d do it “someday.” I’m a very busy nonprofit executive director supporting education and interpretation in our state parks. I was down at the Pismo Beach Vintage Trailer Rally promoting our rally, “Stranded in Morro Bay,” at Morro Strand State Beach the following fall (get it — Stranded in Morro Bay!). I saw a for sale sign on a cute pink, green and white trailer with custom made green cabbage rose curtains. Those have been my favorite colors since I was a girl! I suddenly realized that “someday” was not likely to happen with my busy job, so I knew she had to be mine.
My Mom had died the previous winter, and Jean had been the first one to tell me about Sisters on the Fly and helped me plan our first vintage trailer rally. Not long after I got “Stella Rose,” my sister sent me my mom’s only doll. I never knew about this doll. My mom grew up in the Great Depression and had been very poor. She named this precious doll Rosaleanne.
Well something just woke up in me. I started researching vintage dolls and fell in love with Madame Alexander. Until I had Stella Rose, I had never had a place where I could unabashedly be a girl. I repainted the interior a soft chalk pink and even painted the curtain rods! I was all in: vintage dolls, lace, china, cats, jewelry and even two horse bridal wedding rosettes! I made yo-yo flowers for strings of lights. I blinged out the kitchen. My husband would walk by and say, “Nice rhinestones!” He rewired a vintage light for the “bedroom.”
We have taken her to many of state parks on the Central Coast of CA. My husband cheerfully camps with all my feminine touches. He says it’s like being invited into the “boudoir.” When we aren’t camping Stella lives outside my rose garden, and we often go have a glass of wine and sit and talk.
By Mary Golden from issue 22 of the VCT Magazine.
