West Bridgewater woman, 94, sews dolls by hand for sick children

Nov 13, 2023

WEST BRIDGEWATER - Inside bins and white trash bags in Beverly Bates' house sit 60 hand-sewn dolls. Bates, 94, sewed each pink bear and gray sock monkey on her own, embroidering the eyes and smiles on each doll by hand.

For the fifth consecutive year, she planned to bring them to local hospitals to gift to sick children this Christmas.

Since she turned 90 in 2017, Bates has made over 300 dolls that she donated to hospitals like Signature Healthcare Brockton Hospital.

"I just enjoy doing it," said Bates. "I figured it gave me a reason to get up in the morning."

Bates, who now lives alone in West Bridgewater, spends every day sewing. Each sock monkey takes a full day to sew, and the plush bears and cats take several hours each.

Throughout 2017, she made roughly 100 dolls. In 2020, she made 120.

"I don't like to just sit," she said. "I think it gives you a boost when you make something for someone else."

Bates first learned to sew as a young girl in Bridgewater. Her legs were too short to reach the pedal on her mother's old-fashioned sewing machine, so her brother crawled underneath and pumped the pedal with his hands while Bates stood on the chair working with the fabric.

With five children of her own, Bates didn't work until she was roughly 45. After her first husband died, she needed to find a job to support her family, and she started teaching ceramics and porcelain doll-making.

Her house is decorated with porcelain dolls she made herself. She even made the dolls' clothing - dipping white or green cloth into porcelain before firing it to make it harden. In the corner of her dining room stands a foot-tall doll with blonde hair and wire inside her so her arms and upper body can move - one of Bates' personal favorite projects.

But Bates doesn't stop at dolls. She made her daughters' prom and wedding dresses. She's also a passionate baker and make her children's wedding cakes.

Over the last three years, Bates has been in and out of hospitals, and survived various illnesses. In 2021, she beat COVID-19.

"We didn't think she'd make it," said her daughter Cathy Fraser. "But she's a trooper, she is the glue that keeps us all together as a family."

She also survived two strokes, a heart attack and breast cancer. After each illness, Bates returned back to sewing for the children in hospitals.

"I never really was afraid," Bates said. "I sort of had the attitude that whatever happens is going to happen."

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She said that she's beginning to struggle with her eyesight, which makes sewing more difficult. The bones in her left shoulder - her sewing arm - now grind together, periodically causing intense pain.

"I couldn't do as much as I wanted to do [this year]," she said.

Bates collects all of her supplies herself, storing it in one of the unused bedrooms in her home.

"The bedroom is like a store," she said. "I have a lot of fabric."

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Recently, she started giving away her supplies and old porcelain dolls. Earlier in her life, she made them for a store she ran with a few other women called the Crafty Cricket, at one point making $300 from one doll. But now, she refuses to accept money in exchange for the dolls she sews.

"I'd rather give them for free than see them go to the dump," said Bates. "I can't give them away if I sell them."

As she continues to age, her fingers ache by the end of the day. She "staggers" into bed each night after a tiring day full of sewing. But she has no plan to stop, "even when my fingers get all crooked," she said.

Enterprise staff writer Christopher Butler can be reached at [email protected].