By Darcy Cheek, Recorder and Times (Brockville, ON) Saturday, February 27, 2016
Joan Anstead is diligently carrying on the legacy of a Canadian soldier who recognized the needs of children affected by the ravages of war.
The Roebuck-area woman is carrying on a mission of the late Mark ‘Izzy’ Isfeld by making Izzy Dolls, which have been distributed to comfort children around the world for more than 20 years.
While serving with the Canadian Military Engineers, Isfeld recognized the plight of children caught up in war, once observing a child’s doll laying in the rubble of a bombed building. The first woollen dolls, complete with an iconic blue beret, were knitted by Isfeld’s mother, Carol, and distributed on later missions.
Shortly thereafter, however, Master Cpl. Mark Isfeld of the 1 Combat Engineer Regiment was killed removing landmines while on a peacekeeping mission in Croatia in 1994.
Anstead first learned of the Izzy Doll Project through a Women’s Institute article she saw two years ago and has been knitting ever since. Anstead is a member of the Roebuck Women’s Institute.
“Dozens and dozens,” she says modestly of her unofficial count, which is likely closer to 1,000 according to Shirley O’Connell, the national coordinator of the Izzy Doll Project.
Anstead said the small dolls take her less than a day to make. She supplies most of the material, which doesn’t add up to much for one doll, by herself but does receive some help from the community.
“Sometimes some people give me materials,” she said, “They are all made out of wool and it doesn’t take much.”
When the Izzy Doll Project started to spread across the country through friends and contacts of the Isfeld family, Carol Isfeld decided to put a shape pattern online for people to follow. While Anstead follows the shape, her Izzy Dolls have mostly different characteristics.
“I make my own up, and they are all different I’d say. Different colours, different patterns in different areas. Boys and girls.”
The Izzy Doll Project is so successful a collection network had to be set up. O’Connell, a Perth resident who joined the project in 2005, said the collection network was established through the Order of the Eastern Star, which she has been a member of for 40 years.
“I usually run around five or six thousand that come to me here in Perth,” said O’Connell.
O’Connell said when Canadian soldiers were fully involved in Afghanistan about 25,000 dolls were shipped to that war-torn nation within a couple of years.
“I was running around 12,000 coming to me then in Perth.”
Distribution of the dolls has also grown from just a few by Isfeld himself to fellow soldiers and eventually organizations like the Toronto International Police Officers in Afghanistan, ICROSS Canada, Canadian doctors on short-term medical missions and other national charities.
O’Connell said more than a million Izzy Dolls have been distributed to children worldwide.
“There are other charitable organizations such as Health Partners International,” she said. “There is a warehouse out in B.C. that we send dolls to and they send them in shipping containers to different countries with medical equipment and bicycles, anything they need overseas.”
O’Connell said the dolls are used for packing around fragile materials, instead of using Styrofoam popcorn.
The original intent of the dolls was to give children, even those suffering from natural disasters, comfort. But Anstead said the process of making the dolls is therapeutic to her. Anstead is recovering from a cancer operation and other medical problems.
“It’s nice therapy,” she said.
Coincidentally, when O’Connell was returning from Regina last week and changed planes in Toronto for a flight to Ottawa, she enquired about whether some of the boarding passengers were Syrian refugees. Normally, O’Connell said she would have a few dolls packed in her suitcase, but on this occasion she just happened to have a bag of Izzy Dolls with her. She asked if it was OK to give the children the dolls.