Few people know that two iconic American products—Sweethearts® candies and Raggedy Ann dolls—literally share a heart.

In 1915, 13 years after Sweethearts candies took on their familiar heart shape, Johnny Gruelle, a cartoonist and illustrator, patented a doll he called Raggedy Ann. The inspiration for his creation was said to be an old rag doll recovered from the attic of his home and refashioned with button eyes and a painted face—a gift for his daughter, Marcella. A little bit of new stuffing was required, along with the most important element of all: a sewn-on candy heart.

Sweetheart candies had been made for 50 years before Raggedy Ann appeared, but after the small heart-shape had been adopted in 1902, the sayings morphed from missives like How Long Shall I have to Wait, Pray Be Considerate to short declaratives that could be stamped on a small hard candy—sayings like Too Sweet and For Ever. The strongest declarative of them all was also the most universal—whispered not only between sweethearts, but from friend to friend and from parent to child. The candy heart picked for the heart of Raggedy Ann simply says, I Love You.

Just as the first commercially made Raggedy Ann doll appeared, Marcella Gruelle died at the age of 13, the victim of a contaminated smallpox vaccination. Her heart-broken father went on to write a series of Raggedy Ann stories, featuring a little girl named Marcella and her beloved doll. There was a mishap in the laundry, a ride on a kite, a scare with the family dog. But the biggest adventure in the chronicles of Raggedy Ann comes early on, when she is spirited away by friendly strangers, taken apart, her parts copied so thousands of other girls could have their own beloved dolls.

“I stayed in the clean big light room for two or three days and nights and watched my Sisters grow from pieces of cloth into rag dolls just like myself,” the character of Raggedy Ann declares in Raggedy Ann Stories, the first published volume in the series. The new dolls have her old dress, her shoe-button eyes, happy smile and even, she assures them, “a candy heart, and on it is written, ‘I love you’ just as it is written on my own candy heart.”

That is the creation story of Raggedy Ann. And as they say at the end of many a good story: if you look in the same place today, it’s still there.

Click here for more information on the history of Sweethearts® candies.