Have an ailing doll? Call Petaluma’s doll doctor

Colleen Richardson opened The Doll Mercantile in 1991 after leaving a three-decade career as a teacher.|

Colleen Richardson didn’t go to medical school, but she treats a steady stream of patients each day for a wide variety of injuries, ranging from missing limbs to scrapes - and she even dabbles in optometry. Though Richardson’s unconventional hospital may be bustling, the doll doctor’s patients remain orderly as they await treatment.

“There’s a wait list,” said Richardson, who just turned 80. “We’ve got bins full of dolls.”

Richardson says she’s one of the only doll physicians in the Bay Area, and despite the fact that the doll industry is in a slump, business is booming at The Doll Mercantile, the shop she opened in 1991 after leaving a three-decade career as a teacher.

“Sometimes, I’ll have people out there lined up waiting for all kinds of things, other times it’s very quiet - you never know from minute to minute,” said Richardson, who’s lived in Petaluma since 1963 and spent 28 years working at Two Rock Elementary School.

Richardson’s business where she sells, appraises and repairs dolls and teddy bears, was born from a lifelong love of dolls. But, the venture also affords her an avenue to spend time near something else that’s close to her heart - her husband of 60 years, who operates his antique shop, Richardson’s Relics, in the other half of the building.

She originally opened up shop in downtown Petaluma, but after her partner left several years later, she moved into the Bodega Avenue building where her husband, David, had recently opened up his shop. The pair met at a summer camp in Lagunitas and married at 19, Colleen said.

“People now joke about her taking over, but I don’t care - she’s doing so well with her restoration business … it’s no problem at all,” said David Richardson, who spent about 30 years as a teacher at Petaluma High School before opening his shop. ”As a matter of fact, after 60 years of marriage, we’ve gotten along to this point, and there’s no problem in being together all day and all night.”

David, 83, still sells antiques on his side of the shop while Colleen and her two helpers tend to dolls from all over the Bay Area, replacing outfits, broken limbs, faded and chipped paint, among other tasks. She said customers will bring in clothes, which she cleans and irons, fixing snaps or buttons before using the garments to make sure the antique and vintage dolls are dressed in the appropriate clothes.

For her, old dolls are an art form, and she consults her multiple shelves of books to make sure she’s restoring the doll “exactly as it should be.”

“(I like) the fact that they are vintage and they are antique and they’re beautifully painted and beautifully coiffed and beautifully dressed, and if they’re not, I want to put them that way,” she said. “I know it sounds strange, but I don’t want to see a 100-year-old doll in a polyester dress.”

She carries hundreds of dolls in her store, she said, and she also has a large doll collection of her own.

As a former educator, she says she does her best to instill an appreciation for antique dolls into her younger customers who often bring in their plastic and cloth “American Girl” dolls in for repair.

“As a teacher I’m trying to explain to them that antique dolls are really a work of art, and they need to start looking at them that way - the clothes, the way they’re painted and dressed when they’re all put together - they’re not a plaything anymore,” she said.

Richardson said she had no idea her business would enjoy the longevity or the success it’s seen in the past two decades. She said she told friends that at 80, she’d retire from the business, though she laughed as she said “it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.”

Reflecting on her years behind the counter at the shop in Petaluma and at doll shows, she said she’s relished every aspect of the experience.

“I enjoy the people - a lot of the people who collect dolls are very special, and of course I enjoy all the dolls,” she said.

(Contact Hannah Beausang at argus@arguscourier.com. On Twitter @hannahbeausang.)

UPDATED: Please read and follow our commenting policy:
  • This is a family newspaper, please use a kind and respectful tone.
  • No profanity, hate speech or personal attacks. No off-topic remarks.
  • No disinformation about current events.
  • We will remove any comments — or commenters — that do not follow this commenting policy.