Champlin woman knows the value of a bear hug

They come in all sorts of colors and patterns. They're soft and eminently huggable. And they know how to keep a secret.

"I always say, you can tell them anything you want and they never repeat it," said Beverly "Bee" Bush, who at 89 estimates she has made — and given away — around 7,600 soft fleece teddy bears.

On a recent day, Bush's sofa was piled with bears — orange, blue, red, dotted, flowered, paw-printed, zebra-striped and Vikings-themed. There's even a bumble-bee print — an allusion to Bush's nickname. They each wear a contrasting fleece bow tie. "That gives them a little class," Bush said.

Bush made her first bears about 45 years ago, adapting a McCall's sewing pattern. Initially they went to family members — with seven kids and, eventually, 18 grandchildren, 10 great-grandchildren, stepchildren and step-grandchildren, she's always had plenty of worthy recipients.

But about 15 years ago, she amped up production. Now she makes as many as a dozen a day and gives them away to any organizations that wants them. They've gone to Toys for Tots, Shriners, Sharing and Caring Hands. They've gone to schools, each accompanied by a book, so children can read to their bears. They've even gone to nursing homes and a Veterans Administration hospital, because Bush's bears are not just for children.

"It doesn't matter if you're 1 year old or 100," Bush said. At the veteran's hospital, "these older men say, 'When are they going to bring us some more bears?'"

It's a family-wide enterprise; her daughters lay out the pattern and cut out the four pieces of fleece that form a bear, and a fifth for the bow tie. Bush sews them together (she owns three sewing machines) and fills them with stuffing supplied by her sons. A daughter delivers them.

"We had to retire so we could take this job on full-time," said daughter Mary Perrine of Cologne, only half jokingly. She figures she and her sister, Vickie Spindler of Champlin, have spent $28,000 on fleece in the past few years. Each bear costs $4 or $5 to make, Perrine estimates.

Bush made a special patchwork bear named Patches for her husband of 33 years, Marshall Bush, a retired Minneapolis fire marshal who died in September. He spent some time in a nursing home, where other residents kept wanting to take turns holding Patches. Her daughters took 67 bears to the nursing home so everybody could have their own.

In his final months, Marshall Bush left the nursing home to lie in a bed in Bee's assisted-living apartment, holding Patches.

"He had Patches in his arms when he passed away," Bush said. "When you get a 93-year-old person on their deathbed and they want their teddy bear, it makes you feel like they're worth something to somebody."

'I got better at it'

Bush started sewing as a child, first visiting a neighbor who sewed and coming home with a sewing needle stuck in her finger. "That was my introduction — I got better at it," she said.

She and her first husband, who died of a heart attack 45 years ago, lived in McGregor, Minn., raising their seven children, now ages 51 to 72. Her husband had a traveling sales job, so Bush did most of the childcare on her own. Somehow, she also found time to work at a bank and as a seamstress — she could fix a hole in a suit by weaving a patch in thread by thread, leaving its presence undetectable.

She also volunteered in church, school and hospice settings. She would even fill in for local merchants when they were out of town.

"She's always been a giver," Perrine said. "At Christmas, she makes thousands of cookies and just gives them to people."

Bush also makes many other crafts besides bears. She paints on rocks — little pictures of flowers, holiday images, even a portrait of herself and her late husband — and gives them away. She paints on wooden cutouts for Christmas ornaments, paints and frames pictures, and makes bookmarks by cutting paintings into strips, laminating them and tying on a little yarn tassel. She has knitted hundreds of hats and given them away. She has made "hundreds and hundreds of quilts," Perrine said, and donated them to people in need.

"The biggest thing that Mom has taught us is to share your gifts," Perrine said. "She told us, whatever you're good at, share it."

Bush put it modestly. "Yeah," she said, "it keeps me out of trouble."