Barbie memories The little plastic lady was there for playtime, hard times

Barbie's 50th birthday is being marked around the world with numerous pink-carpet events. But the most meaningful celebration of her milestone is in the stories shared by baby boomers who loved her as youngsters and collect her as adults.

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Stephanie Shareck Werner's Barbie family had an enviable life - a dream house, airplane, convertible and eternal youth. But those once-cherished playthings - like so many of their brethren - have been vanquished to a dull and dusty retirement in her mother's attic.

"This was all accumulated over many years - a delightful indulgence of my youth and a catalyst for my imagination," Werner recalled in an e-mail. "My friends and I would play together, combining our Barbie families and accessories to create soap-opera style scenarios where we seemingly worked out the injustices of our youth."

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A month after her father died, Betsy Dane received her first and only Barbie - a sophisticated, fashionable replacement for her old Betsy Wetsy baby doll.

"Barbie quickly became my best friend," wrote Dane, who lives in Colonial Heights. "I took her everywhere. She became sort of a refuge for me, from a world that was quietly crumbling around me.

"Now when I see her, I remember how special she was and how in some way she helped me heal. I could always talk to Barbie about the sadness I was feeling . . . Barbie was just the best birthday present for a sad little girl."

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Growing up outside Philadelphia, Diana Watts of Richmond remembers her little sister Rebecca's penchant for personalizing dolls. "She was famous for cutting all her dolls' hair and restyling them," Watts wrote.

"One day, I was looking at her dolls and noticed her Ken doll had a beard. She had glued hair from one of the other dolls on Ken's face and made a very neat-looking beard and mustache. He was a handsome fellow."

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Leslie Roman-Williams' younger sister cut off Barbie's ponytails, rendering them worthless as collectors' items.

"My best friend Debbie's mother was more insistent about keeping things pristine," recalled Roman-Williams. "Even as a kid, I laughed when I saw Barbie's outfits carefully hung to dry alongside the family's laundry."

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Sammye Foster's parents didn't approve of pierced ears, so she had to purchase earrings with baby-sitting money. Imagine her dismay when she found the posts broken off several pairs of tiny gold studs. The culprit: Her Barbie-loving younger sister, Mary Wallace.

"It seems that no matter how hard she pushed," Foster wrote, "my sister's small fingers could not force my earrings into the minuscule holes that were on Barbie's ears."

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On March 23, 1968, Barbie and Ken were married in Covenant Community Presbyterian Church in Mount Lebanon, Pa. Barbara Ann Goode and Kenneth Hitchens, now of Goochland County, had Barbie and Ken dolls next to the wedding cake at their reception.

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Latha Kumar collected Barbies as a child growing up during the 1960s and'70s. "It's amazing how an Asian-American such as myself could identify with a blond haired/blue-eyed doll," she wrote. Kumar's mother still gives her Barbie-related holiday gifts. "Without fail, I get the Holiday Barbie and I have quite a collection of Barbie ornaments," she wrote. "But my pride and joy are the international Barbies that are all over my house."

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Beth Duncan and her best friend were about 10 when they stayed up all night to stage an elaborate Barbie wedding in the basement of Beth's South Boston home. "The wedding was on the pool table and a roll of toilet paper served as the aisle with the end being the altar," Duncan wrote.

Duncan's childhood friend died last March before her 51st birthday. "I have thought of her many times since, and our Barbie midnight wedding," Duncan said.

Contact Julie Young at (804) 649-6732 or .