Dress

This dress is part of a group of four pieces of infant clothing--a green cardigan sweater and three dresses--which the donor and her sisters used to dress a mama doll acquired by the museum in 1991. The doll clothing and 1930s doll originally belonged to June Hellenschmidt who grew up on Laurelton Road in Irondequoit, NY. Hellenschmidt, her neighbor friends remember, had a large collection of dolls when she was a youngster. When Hellenschmidt's parents moved from their house on Laurelton Road, they gave the doll to one of June's childhood friends, Jeanette Sercu. Sercu, in turn, passed the doll on to her three granddaughters, Mary (b. 1958), Patty (b. 1959), and Cathy (b. 1964) Viera along with the clothing Viera now donates. Viera reported that her grandmother remembered that June Hellenschmidt never let her neighborhood friends play with her many dolls. Rather, she would place them all on the porch and allow her friends to admire them. This dress was originally intended for an infant. It received a second life as doll clothing.