When people loan teddy bears to the museum, they bring them in their arms.
This month, more than 100 toy bears arrived at the museum snuggled with their owners, eager to join Richards' newest exhibit, "Mrs. Teddy Bear's Holiday Tea."
There is no more popular fare than teddy bears for a holiday exhibit, said Richards, the Historical Museum's senior curator. Of course, there is no more popular stuffed animal.
"No one's ever figured out why teddy bears caught people's imagination so," Richards said. "It's probably because they cuddle good."
The 150 or so patrons at Sunday's opening agreed.
Gerri Stewart came to check on her own little bear - he's the one disguised as a mouse on top of the fireplace. He looked happy in the company of so many of his ilk.
She'd miss the little bear-mouse, Stewart said, except she has another 50 at home.
Stewart collects jointed bears with moveable (and, therefore, poseable) arms and legs. She even has two she bought in Berlin from the Steiff Co. - one of two companies that made the "original" teddy bears a century ago.
The first teddy bears, of course, were in honor of Teddy Roosevelt, after the sportsman-president refused to shoot a bear cub during a hunting trip in Mississippi.
Washington Post cartoonist Clifford Berryman responded with a cartoon, showing Roosevelt and the pardoned baby bear.
The "teddy bear" was so popular that Berryman featured it in his subsequent Roosevelt cartoons on everything from tariffs to the re-election campaign.
Steiff Co. in Germany and Ideal Novelty and Toy Co. of New York followed up with the first toy bears - named for President Teddy.
Richards was amazed at the variety of bears and bear owners she saw coming through the Historical Museum's door when she put out the call for loans last month.
"I have 50 bears," one eager lender said. "Do you want them all?"
"I have 350, but some are in storage," reported another. "Would you like me to bring them over?"
"Not one of them, though, arrived in a box," Richards said. "People don't collect teddy bears to get rid of them. They collect them to love."
In fact, several bears in the exhibit have been loved so well they're missing eyes or fur or their nose.
One pair of bears is actually slippers. Three are collectible Beanie Babies.
Some are handmade: a latch-hook bear whose owner said she's had it since she was "this high," a beautiful auburn bear made from an old mink coat, a tweed-and-button bear with a gentlemanly demeanor.
Two are military, camouflage-clad bears. One is a mountain man-trapper bear. Several are frilly, lacy, high-society bears.
"These bears came off of people's beds, couches and chairs," Richards said. "One came out of someone's kitchen."
Richards loaned a little glass bear that once held Avon perfume. Her panda bear presided over the punch-and-cookies table at the reception.
Her favorite in the exhibit is a golden bear whose nose is turned up - the better to sniff the cinnamon-flavored air.
Mrs. Teddy Bear did allow a few non-teddies to "crash" the exhibit space, Richards said. Most notable is Miss Wilma, an 80-year-old bed doll recently donated to the Historical Museum by Winifred Pike Branning.
Branning received the doll as a child from a doctor whose office was in the Wilma Building, thus the doll's name.
Two important teddies are missing from the museum's collection, Richards said.
"We don't have a Montana Grizzly," she said, although Monte - the University of Montana's better-than-life-size mascot did make an appearance at the opening.
"And we don't have one of Merle McMannis' teddy bears," she said. "We would really like to add one of those to our collection."
McMannis, who died last January, stitched and stuffed more than 3,000 teddy bears for the Hug-A-Bear program of the Western Pioneers of Montana Council, a group of telephone company retirees.
The bears console accident victims and others in need. McMannis was their most prolific maker.
More than 50 folks loaned bears for the exhibit, which continues through Dec. 30. Three helped to assemble the showroom: Dale Johnson, Joyce Kimmer and Kelsey Altenhofen, the museum's Browman Fellow.
Chester Oliver provided the exhibit's artwork. Velma Cameron donated her talent as a harpist to Sunday afternoon's reception.
All the hugs, though, came courtesy of the bears.
Tea time
"Mrs. Teddy Bear's Holiday Tea" continues through Dec. 30 at the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula. Hours are noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.
The museum is closed Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Eve and Day. Admission is $3 adults, $2 seniors, $1 students, free for children under 6. There is also a $10 family rate.
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