HC-One’s Springfield House Care Home in Low Fell, Gateshead celebrated National Teddy Bears Picnic Day this week in their orangery, with staff and Residents both arriving with their teddy bear.
Everyone enjoyed listening to poetry about teddy bears and the history of how they got their name.
In 1902 President Theodore Roosevelt, a big game hunter, was bear hunting on a trip near Onward, Mississipi and unlike other hunters in the ground, he had not located a single bear. Roosevelt’s Assistants cornered and tied a black bear to a willow tree, which they then summoned Roosevelt to shoot the bear but he refused, saying that it was extremely unsportsmanlike.
The story got out and soon newspapers across the country were writing about it, where a political cartoonist, Clifford Berryman, read an article and decided to light-heartedly lampoon the President’s refusal to shoot the bear.
A Brooklyn candy shop owner, Morris Michtom, saw the cartoon and had an idea, he and his wife Rose were also makers of stuffed animals and after securing permission from the President himself to use his name, the teddy bear was born!
Over refreshments and nibbles Residents and staff all told their own personal stories about the teddy bear they had with them and how they had acquired their names.
Resident Jean Young commented:
“I lived in the Scottish countryside and teddy’s were few and far between, but as soon as we moved to the North East my parents bought me one and I was so happy!”