Photograph courtesy of Janee McKinney
Little Janee receives her first teddy bear from her parents, Mildred and Harry Lutticken.
As promised last week, today we explore the derivation of the teddy bear, that adorable companion of children and adults alike. Readers will recall that seven days ago, this space was devoted to presidents past, future and sitting who visited the West Valley. President Theodore Roosevelt came to Campbell in 1803 to turn the first shovelful of soil to plant a redwood tree at the town's first school.
To tell the story of Roosevelt's connection with bears, we turned to Janee McKinney, founder/owner of Bears in the Wood, "The First Teddy Bear Shop in the World," at 59 N. Santa Cruz Ave. The "first shop" slogan has been documented by press, radio and TV, McKinney reports.
Official greeter at Bears in the Wood is Bosco, a bearlike Bernese Mountain dog with distant ancestors in Switzerland. Bosco was so named because his color resembles Bosco, a popular chocolate drink.
McKinney loaned us The Teddy Bear Men, by Linda Mullins, a coffeetable book of photographs, cartoons and text. Cartoons are by Clifford Berryman (1869-1949), a Washington, D.C., newspaper artist.
Roosevelt, who had hunted grizzly bears in the American Rockies and big game in Africa--always with his Winchester rifle--was invited in 1902 to a bear hunt in Mississippi. The president's luck was running bad, and the few bears that were killed were done in by other hunters.
His hosts at Smedes, Miss., were embarrassed by the president's bad luck and, hoping to give their guest a "kill," they roped an injured bear for him to shoot. That was too unsportsmanlike for the president, and he refused to shoot the animal.
Consequently a plaque was erected at the spot, reading: "Teddy Roosevelt's Bear Hunt. Pres. Theodore Roosevelt came to Smedes in 1902 and refused to shoot a captive bear. Cartoons of the event are thought to have led to the invention of the Teddy Bear."
It was not by random selection that Janee and Howard McKinney entered business in Los Gatos. As an infant, she was brought to Los Gatos by her parents and grandparents, the Lutticken and Broderson families, and they resided for periods of time at their home in the Alpine Avenue area. "We have searched for the place many times but have never been able to find it," McKinney said. "Perhaps it has been torn down or remodeled."
According to Linda Mullins, artist Clifford Berryman was, with his teddy bear cartoons, highly responsible for the early popularity of the little fellow.
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, March 19, 1997.
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