I Love Teddy!

I can't remember the last time I read a Farmer's Almanac. Many yearsssss ago! But one showed up in our house recently so I decided to look through it. (I think it came in with my Mom.)

I've always heard the teddy bear was created when Teddy Roosevelt was in office. It was marketed in England under the trade name "Edward Bear."

But there's another story of a bear that is quite interesting. My information is taken from the 2013 Harris' Farmer's Almanac.

Winnipeg the Bear came into existence in 1914 from the forests of Ontario. A hunter killed its mother, scooped up the cub and took her to a trading post where she was sold to a young calvary officer named Harry Colebourn

Mr. Colebour named the bear Winnipeg, and intended to turn the cub loose at the proper time. But the calvalry troop he belong with adopted the cub. Winnipeg went through England and the Western Front with the troop, sailing on a troop ship and onto England's Salisbury Plain.

Colebourn decided trenches were no place for Winnipeg so he made arrangements with the London Zoo to house her. Winnipeg, now known as Winnie, was a drawing card for the zoo. At the end of World War I, Colebourn decided to leave her in England, donating Winnie to the London Zoo in 1918.

Three years later, a little boy celebrating his first birthday was given a stuffed teddy bear, named after Roosevelt. The boy's name was Christopher Robin Milne. Christopher loved two things, his toy bear and Winnie the Bear, who he visited often at the zoo.

Christopher's father, Alexander Alan Milne, was a mystery writer, but Christopher kept asking his father for stories that featured his two favorite bears. Milne began weaving tales that mirrored both their lives and that of Winnie the Bear.

"The Milne family, lived on the edge of a woodland called the Ashdown Forest, long known as the Five Hundred Acre Wood, which was a favorite haunt of father, son, and stuffed bear," Gregory McNamee writes. The Winnie the Pooh books were born.

Winnipeg the Bear lived until the age of twenty. A statue of her stands at the London Zoo. And a statue of Winnie and her beloved Captain Colebourn stands in a park in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

You can read the complete article "Winnipeg The Bear" in the Harris' Farmer's Almanac 2013, by Gregory McNamee.

I will never forget my first teddy bear. He was a little brown bear that I adored. As you can see from the snaps attached, I still love bears.

And then there's Eeyore whose in a class all his own! Jerry gave him to me before we married. My personality identifies with Eeyore. That's why I like him so much!

Happy bear trails!

PS  This morning two fawns were enjoying the early morning with Mom in the field behind our house. First one started jumping around and running the field, and then, after about 4 minutes, the other one decided he wanted in on the fun! Such fun watching them!