It was a teddy bear made from a beloved red plaid flannel shirt that made 85-year-old Velma Klendworth famous in central Illinois. The shirt had belonged to Velma’s late husband, Roy. Velma created him one Christmas to keep Roy’s memory alive for their three children
and seven grandchildren.
“I just couldn’t throw away his shirts or give them away, so I decided to make memory bears,” says Velma. “It was a labor of love.” Velma recently stopped making bears, but in the fi ve years she practiced her craft, she made them for each family member, using material from Roy’s other personal effects—and from their own. “Every bear has a story,” she says. Velma always took great care to make sure that each bear would highlight the recipient’s traits or interests. For her great-grandson Adam Seggerman, a football fan, Velma made a chubby gray bear from one of his Dallas Cowboys shirts—complete with a Cowboy’s insignia. Another great-grandson, Curtis Turner, is an avid outdoorsman, so his bear sports a hat, vest and fi shing lures.
Once word got out about Velma’s bears, it didn’t take long for friends to request their own, and Velma would always oblige. All the bears were constructed from the same brown paper pattern. It’s marked with creases and pinholes, but it has held up well enough for Velma to have hand-made more than 250 bears for practically all the members of her family. Practically. Daughter Sally Seggerman did recognize one glaring omission: a Velma bear.
Now, the pink-and-whitestripe “Velma” teddy sits near “Roy” on the couch.
She wears a white floral scarf and has a curler in th center of her head.
“I made her to look just like me,” says Velma, “and that’s how you’ll find me in the morning most days.”