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At the left is her daughter Claudia C. John.

Accompanying note: "'She'll cut strips of material and then put it together. There's two pieces goes on that doll on the bottom and the top. She puts the design on the larger dolls. She doesn't do that to the four inch and the six inch. But the eight inch on up, they all have designs on that. She has to make the designs separate.'"

"'Sometimes like it would have a heart shape like designs, heart shaped sometimes. Some of them would look like a fire or something. To get a fire design you have to cut it kind of slanted to put it together because if it were straight it would be different.'"

"Most of the dolls are figures of women. And the tradition of dollmaking usually goes from mother to daughter. But some dolls are dressed to look like men. And there are some male dollmakers."

Mary B. Billie has been a dollmaker since she was 17. She learned the skill by watching her mother, who had learned it from Mary's grandmother.