30 | MAY 18 • 2023
OUR COMMUNITY
A
family of dolls taking up residence
in a Metro Detroit mailbox has
taken the internet by storm.
It was an ordinary summer day last
August when Don Powell and his wife,
Nancy, went to retrieve their mail at their
Orchard Lake Village home.
Along with the pizza coupons, circulars
and bills was a peculiar surprise. Powell
found a couple of small wooden dolls — a
man and a woman — sitting on a minia-
ture couch placed in their mailbox by an
unknown person or persons.
“There was also a note that said the dolls
were named Mary and Shelley and that they
liked our modern-style mailbox because it
looked like a cozy house,
” Powell said. “So,
they decided to take up residence.
”
At first, Powell thought it had to be a
mistake and somebody placed the items in
their mailbox inadvertently. He then won-
dered if it was a prank of some sort, and if
others had this done to them as well. Powell
looked around at the other mailboxes in
their cul-de-sac and none of them had little
wooden figurines like theirs did.
Ready to throw them out, something
inside Powell decided to put them back and
wait for the person who left them by acci-
dent to retrieve them. About two to three
weeks later, Powell went to retrieve his mail
again — only to find further additions to
his mailbox.
Mary and Shelley were now sitting with a
service dog. A throw rug, a painting on the
back wall and a four-poster bed that took
up a good chunk of the mailbox were also
added.
“It was then I decided this is somebody
playing a joke on us, and I’m going to go
along with it,
” Powell said.
Powell went on Nextdoor, a hyperlocal
social networking service for neighbor-
hoods, and made a tongue-
in-cheek post describing
what had happened while
also asking for any informa-
tion to find the person or persons
responsible.
The reaction was remarkable,
Powell said. Comments were full
of people saying how funny and
adorable they thought it was. One
person said they spit out their
coffee when reading about the sit-
uation. A small portion thought it
was creepy.
But nobody came forth with
any information or fessed up to the
hijinks. Powell then made another
tongue-in-cheek post.
“I said I contacted the
Oakland County Sheriff’s
Department and they’re going
to run extra patrols through
my neighborhood and that the
Orchard Lake police crime lab
had done fingerprinting on
the mailbox,
” Powell laughed.
“None of which was true, I was
just kind of elaborating on this
mystery.
”
Once again, the post
garnered a huge response
on Nextdoor. People asked
Powell to keep the posts com-
ing and to keep them posted
on what he found out. It was
then that Powell started to
actively post about the lives
of Mary and Shelley, making
up tall tales, or doll tales, about their life.
A ‘LIFE OF THEIR OWN’
Part of it was based upon another letter that
had been put in the mailbox, addressed to
the “landlord.
”
It gave more information about Mary and
Shelley, how they used to live in a two-
story Dutch-style mailbox in another part
of Orchard Lake but were looking for a
Metro Detroit homeowners
had their mailbox taken over by
a family of dolls and the whims of
whoever’s pulling the strings.
All Dolled Up
DANNY SCHWARTZ STAFF WRITER
COURTESY OF DON POWELL