"I'd come and look at them and they absolutely made me smile," Norsworthy remembers. "You can't help but smile when you see a Kewpie."

For Norsworthy, collecting dolls is hardly just a hobby—it's a lifetime passion that brings comfort during hard times, bridges new friendships and serves as a never-ending education on history and culture. And as a 25-year member of the Garden City Doll Club, she's developed a circle of friends who feel exactly the same way.

Members of the club, which celebrated its 30th anniversary on Feb. 28, meet monthly for educational seminars on dolls, travel together to regional and national doll conferences, and show their collections at nursing homes, libraries and clubs throughout the Bay Area.

Though most of the 10 members of the club didn't become serious collectors until adulthood, dolls have been a major part of their lives since they were children. Ask how many dolls they have and you're likely to get a shrug and a smile—"I don't think collectors count their dolls," confides club president Barbara Markey—but most can readily share the story of their first.

For Norsworthy, it was a Shirley Temple doll she won by selling magazine subscriptions—no mean feat, she says, during the Great Depression.

When the doll finally arrived, "she went everywhere with me," Norsworthy says.

For others, doll collecting was a tradition passed down through the women of their family. It was from her mother that Rose Garden resident Ann Durkan learned that doll collecting could quickly become habit-forming.

"Finally, it got to the point where my mother said, 'I don't have any more room—don't buy me any more dolls,' " Durkan recalls. "So then I started buying them for myself. And now I don't have any more room. But I still buy them."

What's so addicting about dolls? Many of the club members say it's the cultural history wrapped up in each one. From the so-called "peddler dolls," modeled after the men that once walked the hills of Peru burdened down with goods to sell in remote mountain villages, to "Toni dolls," released shortly after the invention of the home permanent in the late 1940s and sold with their own home permanent kit, "all dolls have stories behind them," says Norsworthy.

The unique history behind each doll can make it difficult to let go of one, even when it's no longer showcase material. Norsworthy, for one, has a "cemetery" that consists of arms, legs and other small pieces that have broken off her dolls over the years.

"I just can't bear to throw them out," she admits.

It's a feeling other doll aficionados can appreciate. Markey, a mother of eight, says she tends to think of her dolls as an extension of her children.

"They become members of your family after a while," says Markey.

"But," she adds slyly, "they never talk back."

For information about the Garden City Doll Club, call President Barbara Markey at 408.296.7757 or Vice President Arline Norsworthy at 408.296.8319.