Teddy's Bear

There we were enjoying a cruise down a cozy little back road when there on the right was a little white church with two guys in full hazmat gear doing something in and around the church. We did not stop, nor did we breathe. Scary!

                                          Onward Store

I had read in Travel & Leisure about the Legend of the Teddy Bear at the Onward store in Onward Mississippi. I had to go there while we were in Mississippi during Operation Eudora. Onward is a very tiny village or unincorporated community in Sharkey County Mississippi. This means they do not have a municipal form of government but are a part of a larger administrative municipality such as a parish, county or province.

The store opened in 1913 and was also a small restaurant. The store is owned by Mollie Magee VanDevender a former Miss Mississippi. In the fall of 1902 President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt, an avid naturalist and outdoorsman, was invited by Andrew Longino, the Governor of Mississippi, to go bear hunting. Holt Collier, a local bear hunter who also hunted Grizzly Bears in Alaska, was a former slave, tended race horses in Texas and scouted for Confederate Officer Nathan Bedford Forrest (who Forrest Gump was named after his mother tells him in the movie) was enlisted to scout out a bear for the hunt and President Teddy arrived a month later. On the morning of November 14 in 1902 President Teddy, John McIlhenny, heir to the Tabasco sauce fortune, Huger Foote, whose grandson Shelby would become a noted Civil War author, and several other dignitaries formed a hunting party. One of Holt’s dogs picked up a bear scent and off they went tracking a 235 pound male black bear. The bear was mauling and fighting off the dogs when Holt arrived on the scene. He managed to knock the bear unconscious and chained it by the neck to a tree. President Teddy has insisted he wanted to at least see a bear the first day out. Holt remembered this and blew his hunting horn, signaling to the hunting party that he had a bear. Holt offered the president the opportunity to shoot the wounded tethered bear but he refused. President Teddy was raised under strict aristocratic hunting traditions with a rigid sportsman code which dictated that; the taking of young animals and those that did not have a sporting chance of escape or defense was forbidden. The bear was put down and President Teddy claiming the hunt was not a success never spoke of it again.

                                   A 1907 photo of Holt Collier from Scribner's magazine (January 1908)

The press got hold of the story and it went out to every newspaper along with a cartoon created by Clifford Berryman. Soon other artists were re-creating the cartoon each artist drawing the bear to appear smaller, more vulnerable and eventually looking like a cute bear cub rather than an adult male black bear.

Meanwhile in Brooklyn toy store owners, Rose and Morris Michtom read about the unsuccessful bear hunt accompanied by the cartoon which depicted a bear cub. They took a look at the stuffed bears already in the shop and the idea popped into Morris’s head that they could call the bears Teddy’s Bears and sent a letter to the president asking for his permission to use the name Teddy for the bears in his shop. The president agreed and Rose and Morris Michtom started marketing the Teddy Bears. They established the Ideal Toy Company and became very rich. The Teddy Bear is the state toy of Mississippi.

The Bears in the Onward Store are a collector item and are numbered. I have number 92 of 100 bears that were created like him.

                                          My Teddy Bear

I also see a box of Bubba’s Butt Aid on a shelf between Epsom Salt and Rubbing Alcohol at the Onward Store. When I mention this to Seamus he looks at me in shock. Baby’s Butt!! It said Baby’s Butt. OH!!! I suppose it is for diaper rash.

After all that searching in the state park for alligators we finally realized that they had all been relocated to a town appropriately named Alligator in Bolivar County Mississippi. There is a population of about 200 people and Green Bay Packer, Tony Lydell "Alligator" Bennett, is from here.

There in a yard is a sign that reads BOOTS FOR SALE!! I turn to Seamus to comment about this and he is bent over the steering wheel laughing, tears streaming down his face. Boats!! It said Boats he gets out in between bursts of laughter. OH!!

I believe the humidity is causing my eye liner to melt into my eyes and disturb my vision.

Tomorrow … Winterville!!!