doll_babies raze if you ever had a cabbage patch kid growing_up, you owned a little bit of the heart xavier roberts ripped out of martha nelson thomas's chest while it was still beating. martha was a kentucky folk artist who worked in soft sculpture. she started making dolls when she was still in school. she called them doll babies. they weren't toys to her. each doll had its own personality. she made them by hand. she dressed them and gave them names. you didn't buy a doll baby. you made the decision to care for them. it was a lifelong commitment. when she found a budding business magnate reselling the babies he'd bought from a craft fair, martha was horrified. she took back what was hers. a man with a name that rhymed with the god he thought he was responded by stealing her design and all her ideas, right down to the adoption papers. while he was stamping his signature on the ass of every mass-produced poppet and doing all he could to ensure the world would never know the name of the woman who made him his millions, martha used what little money she had to help fund art programs in grade schools. she taught children to quilt and sew and worked to foster their sense of wonder. and she kept her fabric-fed family close. they were loyal until the end. at her funeral, the pews were packed with doll babies rubbing shoulders with the people who understood what they meant to their maker. 260208 what's it to you? who go blather from