Once upon a time, a hundred or so years ago, there lived a president in the land of milk & honey, the United States of America; his name was Theodore Roosevelt or Teddy to his friends and family.
Being the president, Theodore Roosevelt, when not working, would be invited to partake a treat or two. There were a lot of people who wanted to be nice to him. 😉 And aspired to get close or even closer to him. They would go the distance to please the President. They would often think of treats that would amuse the President.
Everyone knew that the president liked going on nature treks and being out and about in the woods.
The perfect treat as thought by The First Gentleman of Mississippi, the Governor Andrew Longanis, was in the form of a bear hunting expedition.
Excellent! Teddy was so chuffed. He was all excited.
So there they went. But alas it was already the third day into the expedition of walking, climbing and riding but there was no bear in sight, not even a baby bear. The poor organisers started to agonise that the trip would be fruitless for being bearless.
That could not happen. The president will be ever so upset and might throw a tantrum and would not want to be friends with them anymore. Nobody wants to be unfriend.
The next day, a courageous and brave guide, with his hunting dogs, set out to find the biggest, meanest looking bear in the whole of Mississippi. His luck had turned. He found an old American Black Bear.
Black bear-Ursus Americanus
It was an arduous task catching the bear. The brave guide and his dogs chased the bear to the north, and then to the south, from east to west and back again. The poor bear was all tired out; so tired, very, very tired; he was finally cornered and got attacked and injured by the dogs. The bear was then tied to a willow tree.
“Cowee! Mr President, we have got the bear for you, come and shoot him, he is ready!”
Theodore bounded into the clearing to see what he could see. What he saw shocked him to the core. The bear was tired and bloodied. He said “No!!!” firmly. No one would shoot the bear for sport in the state.
Additionally the President saw how badly injured the bear was, so he ordered that it should be put out of its misery with immediate effect.
The story was disseminated into the country. It caught like wildfire.
Clifford Berryman, a political cartoonist, drew a cartoon showing how Theodore Roosevelt refused to shoot the bear.
This titillated the imagination of both young and old, so much so that a certain shopkeeper, Morris Michtom, was inspired to display a couple of stuffed bears his wife had made in the front of his shop. He sent the president a sample of the bears and asked permission to call the toy bears “Teddy’s bears”. The President confirmed that he had no problem with it. The venture was so successful that eventually Morris Michton’s shop became the Ideal Novelty and Toy Company.
Concurrently, in a faraway continent of Europe, there stood a country called Germany. It so happened that an industrious woman by the name of Margaret Steiff had a passion for sewing. She was unable to walk but her disability did not stop her earning a living. She made stuffed toys such as elephants and other animals including bears. Her bears were so good that the land of milk and honey got to hear of it. They wanted Margaret’s bear. So by 1903, she was sewing like mad to be able to comply with the burgeoning orders for Steiff bears from America.
And that is how our most beloved teddies came into being! It was all about Teddy and the sad, tired American Black Bear.
Just some of my teddy bears from my Peter.
Photo by PH Morton
Much sought after, who knows you may have a Stieff bear sleeping in your attic. Earlier Steiff bears are now a collector’s item that they could fetch thousands of pounds in the open market.
