Donald Davis, the Dean of Storytelling, and also, an author, will be at the We Piddle Around Theater in Brundidge Friday night. March 1 only. He recently published a book titled “How They Linger: Stories of Unforgettable Souls.”

Reading Donald Davis’ book, I began thinking about the “unforgettable souls” in my life and how they made my life better for having been a part of it. I recently shared the story titled, “Don’t Nobody Appreciate Agnes,” and was surprised by the number of people who shared their stories of Agnes with others.

This week, thinking about Donald Davis at the We Piddle Around Friday night; Black History Week at Pike County High School and the upcoming quilt show on Saturday at the Pioneer Museum of Alabama, an unforgettable soul touched my heart. This is her story.

Hazel was a regular at the Colley Senior Complex. She made dolls from scrap material and gave them away to those who had the capacity to enjoy them.

In 2005, Appalachian storyteller Sheila Kay Adams was to be a feature teller at the We Piddle Around Theater. She would be the first storyteller to take the stage at the small-town theater. Being Southerners, we wanted to give her a meaningful gift, but what?

Sheila often told stories about her much-loved granny. So, we asked to Hazel to make a granny doll for her gift. The doll had grey hair in a bun, glasses, a flour-sack dress and the sweetest face. We all wanted to take her home. But knowing we could not. She was a gift for the storyteller coming to our downtown theater.

Hazel and I often shared stories of growing up the rural South and about the people we knew and loved and how they influenced our lives.

One afternoon, Hazel surprise me with two flour sack dolls, one white and one black. Hazel had heard me often talk about me and my friend Louise. She realized how much we cared for each other.

Hazel had not drawn faces on our dolls’ faces; she sewed on their eyes and lips and made flour sack dresses for them.  They were beautiful.

Many years had passed and I had almost forgotten about Hazel’s dolls. No one knew happened to Hazel’s dolls.

The upstairs of my grandmother’s house had plenty storage space for things we had but didn’t want. Maybe, just maybe, somebody had cared enough to keep our Hazel-made dolls.

I could not believe what I was seeing. Hazel’s hand-sewn dolls had rocked for years, in my granny’s straw bottom chair and right next to each other and not one day older.

I picked the rag dolls up, one at time. They needed to go home and, if they could have talked, they would have said so.

In the rocking chair my granddaddy had made, I found a hand-made quilt that my grandmother had made from scrap material. It was time for me and Louise to go on home where they would be loved and cared for.