DECATUR - Judith Bennett's dolls have their own personalities and stories she makes up for them.

A recently freed slave, for example, dressed up for church, carries a pink satin handbag.

"That's a hand-me-down from the mistress," Bennett said, touching it. "A lot of times, the slaves had expensive things that had been discarded by the plantation owners."

The dolls spent February on display in the glass case in the entryway at Parsons School, with a backdrop of a Black History Month timeline. The dolls stood in chronological order of black women's history and development through the years, from African queens to cotton field slaves to a modern career woman to an angel.

Principal Jean Reid suggested the angel doll would be lovely on a Christmas tree, but in mock dismay, Bennett gazed into the doll's expressive face and asked, "You don't want to be on a tree, do you?" Turning back to Reid, she said, "She said 'No.' "

Both women laughed, longtime friends who attend St. Peters African Methodist Episcopal Church. Reid said she also prevailed upon Bennett to display her dolls at Eisenhower High School once, when Reid worked there.

"I just take her with me from building to building," Reid said.

Bennett buys doll heads and hands from craft stores and searches all of Central Illinois, if necessary, to find just the right material and props to dress them. She invents what she can't buy, such as the washboard leaning against a washerwoman doll. It's really cardboard, painted silver, but no one would know that, even if they looked closely, because it's so convincing.

A churchgoing doll is wearing a dress with the Beatitudes printed on it ("Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted") which Bennett found in a fabric shop and knew was perfect for a church lady. Each dress is based on the same basic design, but each is as unique as the doll. The dolls have hairstyles painstakingly created to suit each one's character, and jewelry which she makes.

"I have to keep busy," Bennett said, while showing her latest creation, a scene of a Deep South family resting in the front yard of their home after a hard day's work. "When the Lord gives you a creative mind, you have to use it."

Valerie Wells can be reached at vwells@;herald-review.com or 421-7982.