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