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.