Miss Sharmel Elliott was born in Jacksonville, Texas in 1915. Her family moved to the Northeast when she was 4 years old.
She graduated from Hempstead High School on Long Island, New York and attended Randolph-Macon’s Woman’s College in Lynchburg, Virginia for 2 years before transferring to Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois for her final two years of college. She graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in the Theory and Practice of Art and, I learned in just the last few years, a degree in Psychology as well – both of which were used throughout her life.
Following in her mother’s footsteps, she then went to Traphagen School of Fashion in NYC. Her designing career began when she was hired by Effanbee Doll Company in New York City somewhere around 1934. She would have been 20 years old. Her first assignment was to create a historical doll series depicting American fashions from 1492-1939. She told us she had to do extensive research on the history of the various time periods so she could create the fashions from the various eras correctly. She said this process took four years to complete.
There were three sets of display dolls for the series – each one consisting of 30 dolls. The three sets of Effanbee Historical Series Display Dolls toured the US and were displayed in many large department stores. Her costumes used expensive and rare fabrics with each set being valued at $10,000! In her later years, she told us that she had heard that they were in the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Recently, proof of that was found. Going through some items her aunt had sent me several years ago, I found a picture from 1939 of the dolls with the following written across the top – “Dolls dressed for World’s Fair, 1939, by Scharmel Elliott.”
The dolls were not for sale, but her designs were also produced in less expensive fabrics for the 14 inch replica series that the display dolls promoted and were sold in department and toy stores all over the country for $4.98 each.
An article about her designing of these dolls appeared in multiple newspapers throughout the United States in 1939. This speaks of her work on the Historical Doll Series. It also gives us our only insight into how she went about deciding how to costume the dolls. Interestingly, it does not mention Effanbee.
She loved designing and planned to eventually go to Paris to be a designer there. But, she gave up that dream after meeting our Daddy. Our Grandmother had met him previously and thought her daughter needed to meet him. One day, our Mother went to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel to attend a fashion show. Our Daddy happened to be the house physician for the hotel. And they met.
Long story short, they married in August of 1939. He had completed his residency at Bellevue Hospital and together they made the move to Houston, Texas where he would open an office and start his practice. Before children came along, she would cover fashion shows in Houston for the newspaper. To my recollection, she said she did go back one time to New York City to visit before having children. She and our Daddy would become parents to 4 sons and 4 daughters. I remember asking one of her aunts why she would give up such a promising career, and she said that our mother’s biggest dream since childhood was to have a dozen children. She got 2/3 of the way!
From time to time she would talk of her designing days. She would show us pictures of the Historical Dolls taken in the Effanbee factory. I was intrigued by the fact that she said every hair in the doll’s wigs was put in one strand at a time, and that it was human hair.
She truly loved every minute of her designing days. I remember her taking brown paper grocery sacks and cutting out dress patterns for my sisters and me. Her skills as designer and seamstress were remarkable. And, she certainly used that psychology degree in raising 8 children!