BUFFALO, NY- Thousands of cancer patients and their family members in Buffalo have been receiving special dolls to provide hope and encouragement through their struggles. For years they were made by just one man, and now a group of women is making his dolls to carry on his legacy.
In 2016, WGRZ-TV's Melissa Holmes told the story of Robert Rowe, who was 83-years-old at the time, and spent hours behind his sewing machine each and every day, not alone, but with his dolls. Click here to watch the original story.
Rowe began making the dolls in 1999, after battling lymphoma cancer. The cancer dolls had hair that was attached with Velcro and could be removed when the patient was going through chemo. Each doll had a heart, and a tag with a quotation from Proverbs that Mr. Rowe said got him through his most difficult times: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding."
Mr. Rowe handed out thousands over the years, trying to bring comfort and hope with each doll. He told others on several occasions, his dying wish for someone to continue to make his dolls after he couldn't make them anymore.
Robert Rowe passed March 25, 2018 at the age of 84.
Mr. Rowe was born in Buffalo and graduated in 1948 from Emerson Vocational High School. He was an Army mechanic in Korea and then worked as a pipe and valve repairman for Stitt & Priebe in Buffalo and retired in 1996. He said he never imagined he would use his mechanic hands to sew dolls for the later portion of his life.
Mr. Rowe was very active in his church and that's where he met a friend Christine Whalen.
"He was worried about what was going to happen to these dolls if something happened to him," said Whalen. "I let him know that he didn't have to worry about them."
She invited Mr. Rowe to meet her friends at the Schiller Park Senior Center in Buffalo. Some of them knew how to sew, others did not, but she thought they would be willing to take on the project.
"Bob came in and helped me teach other people how to make these dolls," Whalen said.
He even gave them one of his own sewing machines to stich together his same pattern, and add the same red heart, the hand-stitched face, and the label from Proverbs.
"He prayed with me, we prayed together, and I received my doll from Bob and I'll always remember it. It brought me comfort," said Susette Mines, a Schiller Park Senior Center member and breast cancer survivor.
Now the women get together 3 times a week, four hours each day, to sew. Each lady channels Mr. Rowe's faith and spirit as they work together to make each doll.
"So all of these dolls have a little bit of each of us in it," said Whalen. And they have a little bit of Mr. Rowe in them, too.
Mr. Rowe's sons, David and Daryl, are grateful for the women carrying on their father's mission. They haven't had the heart to clean out his sewing room.
"He's still watching," said David of his father. "He's like 'yeah, they're doing my work.'"
Registered Nurse Veronica Manary says Roswell's Park's Amherst clinic hasn't been the same without Mr. Rowe's cancer dolls and his weekly visits with the patients.
"He loved to tell his story and relate that to what they were going though," said Manary.
Before he passed, she promised him there would always be a place in the clinic for his dolls. The women from Schiller Park are sending their next batch to Manary to deliver to her patients.
"It makes me feel honored that I can continue that for him," said Manary.
Mr. Rowe said, through his dolls, he hopes to reassure other cancer patients that there's hope. That hope will live on, as the women stitch together Mr. Rowe's dolls and his legacy.
"They come from love, they come from Bob, and so we will just continue to have his spirit carrying on with the dolls," said Mines.
Whalen added, "And I hope we're doing Bob proud that we can keep this going for him."
They only plan to change only one thing about the dolls. The back label still reads, "Made by Robert Rowe." They plan to change them to read, "Made in Honor of Robert Rowe."
Whalen hopes to teach others across Western New York how to sew Mr. Rowe's dolls. Anyone is welcome to come to Schiller Park Senior Center to learn. Christine Whalen can be reached through Activities Director Anne Loucks at 716-895-2727.
They will also gratefully accept donations of material, stuffing, yarn, Velcro and sewing machines.