The Rag Doll Craft Shop in Flat Rock, N.C.
- cdavis884
- 5 days ago
- 6 min read
By Missy Craver Izard
Around this time each year, my doctor’s waiting room is home to a Christmas tree decorated with angel cards. Today, when I saw the tree, I was reminded of a visit from my mother in the early 2000s. I had picked two angel cards from this very office — one for a girl and one for a boy — hoping to offer them a bit of holiday magic. Armed with their wish lists, my mother and I went shopping. In our own small way, we were Santa Claus. Each aisle felt like a corner of the workshop, and we had more fun than we ever expected.
Back home, we wrapped the gifts and labeled each package before returning them to the doctor’s office. As Christmas grew closer, a letter arrived from my mother. In it, she shared how special the experience had been for her — how it had restored the magic of Christmas.
Sitting in the waiting room today, I found my thoughts drifting back to my childhood Christmas memories that still shimmered with wonder. One always stands out: visiting the Rag Doll Craft Shop in Flat Rock, North Carolina. Passionate about doll collecting, especially handmade ones, I saw that little store as Santa’s Workshop itself.
Growing up, our family would vacation at Lake Summit, N.C. Trips to Hendersonville and Flat Rock were always a highlight, but my favorite destination by far was the Rag Doll Craft Shop. I was captivated by the craftsmanship of the dolls created by the shop’s owner. Each one was handmade and beautiful, many depicting beloved storybook or nursery rhyme characters. It’s no wonder I wanted to collect them all.
The Rag Doll Craft Shop was one of those places I assumed would always be there. It felt woven into the very fabric of Flat Rock — a landmark that made each visit special. Naturally, when I had children of my own, a trip to the shop was always at the top of our mountain agenda.
The Patton Store: a building with a long memory
Located at 2622 Greenville Hwy., the building that housed the Rag Doll Craft Shop was once known as the Patton Store — a one-story, front-gable frame commercial structure dating to the late nineteenth century. The simple building rests on a granite pier foundation and is clad in weatherboards. Its façade features double-leaf glazed-and-paneled doors flanked by large two-over-two double-hung sash windows, sheltered by a modern cloth awning. Inside, plastered walls and ceilings and original batten shutters speak to an earlier era. Its significance lies not only in its age, but also in the many roles it has played in Flat Rock’s community life.
Post office history
After the Civil War, Flat Rock’s post office changed hands frequently — sometimes within the same family. Peter Stradley, builder of the ca. 1844 structure known today as the “Old Flat Rock Post Office,” was removed from his post; his son Cephas took over on June 25, 1866. Cephas ran a store in Flat Rock and later married Nancy Patton, but when the couple moved to Dalton, Georgia, his sister Salome Stradley assumed the duties on December 9, 1868. She became Flat Rock’s first female postmaster, serving nearly nine years.
Salome was succeeded on August 1, 1877, by John P. Patton (1853–1921), who was married to her niece. Patton operated a store just north of the Stradley building and moved the post office to his own shop at 2622 Greenville Hwy. — the building later known as the Patton Store.
The change was short-lived. When Matthew S. Farmer became postmaster in 1879, he relocated the post office back to the Stradley building, where his brother-in-law James Ripley ran a store. Farmer himself had assumed management of the Farmer Hotel (later the Woodfield Inn, now the Mansouri Mansion) and likely played only a modest role in daily postal operations despite holding the title until 1897.
Patton presumably resumed running his general store after his brief tenure as postmaster. But the Patton Store had not seen the end of postal business. It would once again become Flat Rock’s post office — this time 43 years later.
In March 1922, Walter F. Justus replaced John Seymour Jones as postmaster. Justus hoped to install gasoline pumps in front of the Stradley building, but Jones, who owned the Old Flat Rock Post Office at that point, refused permission. As a result, on July 1, 1922, Justus moved the post office back to the Patton Store, where a single hand-cranked gas pump already stood. The small building now served as both service station and postal counter — a clear reflection of shifting times. The Patton Store remained the post office until 1953.
The building continued to adapt. In 1939, A. Campbell King, grandson of Judge Mitchell King, purchased it and became postmaster. In 1947, Jimmy Harris bought the property with plans to open a grocery store. With only five pendant lights and no indoor plumbing, Harris added a concrete-block wing to improve lighting and sanitation for the post office and opened Harris Grocery in the original frame section.
The last postmaster to serve in the Patton Store was Lenoir Ray (1948–1971), a respected author and historian best known for Postmarks: A History of Henderson County 1787–1968.
In 1953, the post office returned once more to the Stradley Building (now 118 Village Center Dr). Harris Grocery continued until 1956, when Harris sold the property to Marion Ford Mann, who would operate the Rag Doll Craft Shop there for the next four decades, well into the 1990s.
The rag doll years
All told, I probably have between 20-30 dolls made by Marion Ford Mann. My first two children were girls, and each Christmas I gave them a new doll. When my oldest daughter played Mother Goose one year in a school play, I just had to get her the Mother Goose doll.
Some of my favorites were the storybook “three-in-one” dolls — magical creations featuring multiple characters in a single piece. Red Riding Hood on one side, and when flipped over, Granny and the Wolf on the other. They were utterly enchanting, especially to a young child.
Many years later, when my youngest daughter was born, I wanted to “catch up” her collection. Sadly, by then Mrs. Mann was nearing retirement, and my baby girl ended up a bit short-changed in her set.
When the shop began closing, I purchased two dolls to save for the granddaughters I hoped to have one day. My first two grandchildren were boys, so the dolls — still carefully wrapped in tissue for more than 30 years — remained tucked away, waiting. Eventually those boys welcomed a baby sister, and I gave her my cherished Red Riding Hood three-in-one doll.
This past year, two granddaughters were born into the family, and it seems the long-awaited moment may have arrived. After decades in careful keeping, the saved dolls may soon be brought out and loved by the little hands for which they were intended.
A building that keeps evolving
In 2006, the building entered yet another chapter when Back Home Magazine moved in. Founded by former Mother Earth News staff who stayed in Henderson County after that magazine’s departure in the late 1980s, Back Home — led by Richard Freudenberger — occupied the Patton Store until 2013.
Later, the building was purchased by a textile and fiber artist who created one-of-a-kind art dolls, faeries, mermaids, birds, unique knitted handbags, felted dream pillows and other imaginative works. Now, renovated into a residence, the building is listed as a rental property.
A final reflection
As I think back on all the lives this little building touched — postmasters, shopkeepers, travelers, neighbors — I’m reminded that its magic was never just in the structure itself. It was in the way it provided the simple, everyday moments that became treasures: a handwritten letter, a gallon of gas, a bag of groceries, a handmade doll waiting on a shelf. Each season of its life offered some small wonder to the people who stepped inside.
For me, that wonder was strongest at Christmas time. As a child, walking through the door of the Rag Doll Craft Shop felt like entering a secret world — one where imagination ruled and where a single handmade doll could hold a whole story. That sense of enchantment stayed with me as I grew older, as I shopped for my own children, and even now, as I tuck away dolls for the next generation.
Christmas magic isn’t only found in angels on a tree or gifts wrapped in bright paper. It lingers quietly in the places that spark joy, inspire dreams or make us feel, even for a moment, that the world is full of possibility. The little purple building in Flat Rock is one of those places for me.
And as my grandchildren discover the dolls saved for them, I hope they, too, will feel a bit of wonder — the same spark I felt all those years ago. Because Christmas magic, at its heart, is simply seeing the world again through a child’s eyes.
Missy Craver Izard was born and raised in Charleston, S.C. and resides in Flat Rock, N.C. A retired summer camp director and art teacher, Missy is an entrepreneur, speaker, author, journalist, community leader and the recipient of several awards including the White House Champions of Change.
