As a young mother with a family of five to care for, I had very few clothes in my wardrobe. My cousin Berla was much better off financially than I and had a beautiful black seal coat.
One day, in the mid-1960’s, Berla came to visit and gave me the seal coat. It stayed in the closet for several years until I began teaching again, at the age of 48.
Winter recesses in Maine are windy, snowy and cold, and each teacher had to take a turn watching the children as they played outside. Each time I wore the old fur coat, many children, including my son, came up to me for a hug. I knew their motive—to get warm under that coat. It soon became the desire of all the teachers to borrow the old coat when it was their turn on the playground.
After I retired, my niece, Faye, gave me the idea of making teddy bears out of the old coat. I presented a bear to each of my five children with a note telling the story of the old fur coat.
The bears, put in special places in their homes, now provide a pleasing connection among the siblings.
~~Maxine Pease, Pittsfield, Maine (Published in the March 2008 issue of Reminisce Magazine)
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