![]() ![]() hold the official license for Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy products, but thousands have been produced without permission. ![]() Today, Johnny and Myrtle’s grandson Kim Gruelle still sells official dolls and books online. The success of Ann was followed by the “birth” of her brother, Andy. This sweet tradition lives on in Raggedy dolls created today. The family legend says a candy conversation heart was sewn into her fabric body. Somewhere along the way, he might have invented the story of how Raggedy got her heart. He began telling his daughter a new Raggedy Ann adventure every night. The little rag doll sparked the imagination of Johnny Gruelle, who was an accomplished cartoonist. His poems were called “The Raggedyman” and “Little Orphan Annie” and were favorites of Marcella. Raggedy got her name from the characters in two poems written by a Gruelle family friend, James Whitcomb Riley. Marcella’s mother, Myrtle, made clothes for her from patriotic fabrics of red and blue and a white apron. Marcella wanted the doll to have a face, so her father, Johnny Gruelle, painted on big black eyes, a triangle-shaped nose and a wide grin. The story goes that Raggedy Ann began as a faceless rag doll found by a little girl named Marcella in her grandmother’s attic. I haven’t written about Raggedy Ann for several years, but hers is an interesting tale. ![]()
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