Passings: DC Dollhouse Museum Founder & Curator

As reported by The New York Times:

Flora Gill Jacobs, an internationally recognized authority on dollhouses who spent her adult life blissfully awash in minutiae, including tiny, lavishly appointed mansions and an ornate Mexican villa that came with its own chapel (very small priest included), died on May 31 in Washington. She was 87 and lived in Chevy Chase, Md.

For many years, Ms. Jacobs presided over the Washington Dolls' House and Toy Museum, which she founded in 1975 and ran for nearly three decades, usually at a loss. Her work there, and her writings, were credited with creating interest in dollhouse collecting in the United States in the second half of the 20th century.
While there are many museums of dolls in this country, Ms. Jacobs's, a result of six decades of ardent collecting, was believed to be the first here devoted primarily to dolls' homes. In its heyday, it attracted more than 20,000 visitors annually, most of them adults.

Six days a week, Ms. Jacobs went to the museum to fuss, dust and instruct. As she told The Washington Post in 1988, "I hardly ever go out into the life-size world."
She closed the museum in 2004, citing rising costs and advancing age.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/12/us/12jacobs.html?_r=1&oref=slogin