FOR SIKESTON WOMAN, APPLE A DAY MEANS ANOTHER DOLL

Nellie Shephard showed off one of her masterpieces in progress. A totally handmade hobby, Shephard has made hundreds of such pieces, some for friends and family, and even one for Bill Clinton.

SIKESTON -- Apples may be for bobbing or baking, for grasping the idea of gravity or keeping the doctor away. They are good for slicing, dicing and biting.

But for Nellie Shephard, they are for creating masterpieces.

Her applehead dolls are lifelike characters caught in time. Wrinkled faces tell stories, fingers fold around fiddles and books, and old blue jeans and fancy frocks adorn bendable bodies about 10 inches tall.

At 80, this South Dakota native is cut from the same cloth as her Plains ancestors, who were among the first to homestead in the southern part of that state. Mrs. Shephard is not only a master at her craft -- twice named Arkansas-Best of Show -- she is intent on seeing the tradition continue.

"It's an old craft that's dying out and there's not a lot of people who do it," Mrs. Shephard said.

She should know. She has traveled as far as Virginia in her quest to contact everyone she hears about who makes the dolls.

The story began in 1976 with an article she clipped out of a magazine. The article was entitled, "The Applehead Clan."

Still six years away from retirement, Mrs. Shephard tucked the directions away until 1982 when she left the Hammond, Ind., K-Mart for the last time.

"That was when I went to Michigan and saw my first applehead doll," she said. Now, hundreds of creative characters later, Mrs. Shephard's work resides in several museums and family living rooms, and one found its way into the hands of Bill Clinton, then the governor of Arkansas.

"We were in this little grocery store in Arkansas, and the girl there couldn't make change," Mrs. Shephard recalled. "I knew that the governor had this education program going, and so I made 'School Marm' and took it and gave it to his (Clinton's) secretary.

"I didn't really want to do it, but Lynn (her husband) said I should go ahead so I did. I got a thank you note from him too!"

After 50 years in Indiana, Mrs. Shephard left for warmer a warmer climate in Malvern, Ark., in 1986. They moved to Sikeston last year.

Malvern proved to be a good place to hone her applehead craft.

She makes it all, from apple-head to foot, using glue, pipe cleaners, wire, cotton balls, old pantyhose, assorted scraps of material, stuff she finds at yard sales, and of course, red Delicious apples.

"The red Delicious are the best," Mrs. Shephard said. She's tried other kinds, and has also used potatoes, and pears. Each has its own good points and bad.

"The potatoes have veins which twist when they dry," Mrs. Shephard said. "Pears dry real clear, even better than the apple, if you can find the right one." Yellow Delicious apples are good, too, but normally she sticks with the red.

Early fall is the best time to get the best fruits, Mrs. Shephard said.

Mrs. Shephard begins by removing the stem and the blossom end of the apple. She said it takes about an hour-and-a-half using a potato peeler and a paring knife to create the figures.

"I don't know what the face will look like until it has dried," Mrs. Shephard said. "Each one just appears on its own. Only then can you tell whether it will be male or female.

"Of course, they're always older faces," she said. "The apple shrinks by about half, which is where the wrinkles come from, of course they have to be older people."

Drying time is about four days on top the refrigerator, but Mrs. Shephard uses a dehydrating oven these days. While they dry, she adds a delicate pinch and poke here and there, highlighting different facial features -- some have long, pointed noses, some have bigger grins.

She uses lemon juice while carving to keep the color, but even with a paraffin dip at the end of the process, they will turn dark in 3-4 years. Because of this, she sometimes adds a molding clay coat.

The clothes are personally designed and handmade, using Mrs. Shephard's own patterns.

"She is good, she can create stuff out of nothing," Lynn said.