The Goodrich advertising gurus were scouting high and low for a pretty, petite girl with blonde curls to model with the doll. They found all that in Freeland -- plus something extra: She had Goodrich in her veins. Her father, George Achberger worked for the tire division for 55 years. His three brothers -- Elmer, Melvin and Elden -- also were longtime BFG employees.

She remembers crying through the entire photo session because her mother had to wake her up from a nap to pose.

"The photographer caught me looking down so you can't tell," said Freeland, still blonde and plenty energetic. "But I didn't like it at all."

She doesn't have the dolly she posed with anymore. It disintegrated along with Akron's rubber jobs. But her memories of the days when Akron meant toys and tires still are intact.

"It was the best place in the world to grow up," she said. "Everyone knew Akron was a boom town."

Even the suits at the annual New York City Toy Fair.

As the pioneer of rubber manufacturing, the Akron area once boasted several companies that produced molded rubber toys. Some toys squeaked. Most were squeezable. And all were simple in the days when a child's attention could be engaged without batteries.

"We produced more toys in sheer number of units than any other place in the world from 1930 to 1960," said Akron attorney and toy history buff David Lieberth. "We were the cheap toy capital of the world." Lieberth doesn't mean that in a disparaging way. It's just that wind-up and tin toys were the playthings of rich children. Akron catered to the average American kid.

When Freeland posed in 1930, the Akron area toy industry was entering its heyday. Besides Goodrich, there was the Rempel Manufacturing Co., which opened in 1946 with a line of rubber barnyard animals called Sunnyslope.

Sun Rubber Co. of Barberton created Amosandra, one of the first black dolls ever made. Sun Rubber's chief executive, the late T.W. Smith, was such a purist that he went to Harlem to work with a black photographer so he could get the features and skin coloring just right.

Saalfield on South Main Street in Akron was nationally known for paper dolls, books and stackable blocks that founder A.G. Saalfield dubbed Blockheads. Saalfield also made Hippity Hop, a large round ball on which kids could sit and bounce.

World War II slowed rubber toy manufacturing to a near standstill. After the war, molded plastic toys became the rage because they were more durable, cheaper and easier to make, but Akron never took back its place in the market. The profit margin on toys was too slim and union wages too high to make toy manufacturing feasible here, Lieberth said. And by the time electronic games emerged in the 1970s, Akron's toy industry was history.

Goodrich, which became Uniroyal/Goodrich in the 1970s, was later swallowed by Michelin. Sun Rubber was bought out in 1973 after it had moved to Georgia. Rempel sold out to Blazon, makers of outdoor swing sets, and Blazon sold out to Leisure Group, makers of Flexible Flyers and swimming pool equipment. Saalfield went bankrupt in 1976.

As Carol Achberger Freeland goes, she's thriving in the Portage Lakes home she shares with her husband of 45 years, Robert. She retired from a career as a nurse in 1988 and simply enjoys spending time being a grandmother to 8-year-old Andrew and 12-year-old Alyssa. Although Alyssa enjoys computer games, Freeland said, she also has a passion for something a bit more old-fashioned.

"She loves dolls," said Freeland. "But they're a lot fancier than my rubber dolly."