Broken limbs, chafed skin, twisted torsos - he's seen it all. Dallenbach wanted the crack in her 1938 Pasty Ann doll patched, but she winced at the price. You will be enthralled. I love to work with my hands. I love to work with people.
Customers seem equally smitten with the frisky doll fixer.
Ann Whitmarch, who entrusted Chase to repair her 1935 Shirley Temple doll, was pleasantly surprised at his repair job. The crack in the doll's head had vanished. She had a new wig of human hair and a new set of pupils. Chase has been dispensing such advice since he took over the doll hospital from his father in 1945. It was established in 1900 by his grandfather, Abe Chase, who left hairdressing to fix dolls when he found that attaching a wig on a doll brought 45 cents in two minutes, while fixing human hair earned him 30 cents for half a day's work.