ABERDEEN, S.D. (AP) - Growing up, Laurie Martin wasn’t the crafty one.
That title belonged to her sister, Pam.
But now the craft room in Martin’s home tells a different story.
Two bags full of handmade teddy bears line the south wall - one overflowing with bright green bears stitched with the jersey numbers of each player on her granddaughter’s baseball team, the other with bears of varying fabrics that will be donated to local hospitals, children and nonprofit organizations.
Teddy bears sewn together from the fabric of late loved ones’ clothing are perched on tabletops and shelving.
Martin points out the bears that have the most importance to her.
There’s the first one she ever made, with the help of her sister. It’s a little larger and sewn from a shirt that belonged to her husband’s late father.
There’s one made from red handkerchiefs that wears on its chest a transferred photo of her late mother-in-law.
And sitting on their own stand are the bears she made to represent her own late parents.
That’s how Laurie’s Better Bears started.
“I never thought I’d get over losing my own mother,” said Martin, 56.
Evie Hartfiel died four years ago this month. Her death was followed closely by the death of Martin’s mother-in-law and that doubled the grief.
“I never realized how hard it is when you lose someone, but losing both my mother and my mother-in-law, that was just the hardest thing. It still is,” she said. “I just want to help people through that. If I could make a bear for everyone, I would.”
The bears “hug back,” Martin said.
The grief process is one reason why Martin prefers to meet everyone she makes a bear for.
While she lives about 10 miles northwest of Aberdeen, she’ll meet customers in town with their orders.
“Every bear I’ve made has a story,” Martin said. “Every bear I’ve put out there, whether I’ve cried making it or not . it’s a good, heartwarming feeling, but some of them are tough.”
The bears help both her and others, she said. The business’s name, Better Bears, is a reflection of how Martin was feeling when she was dealing with her mom’s death.
“Making each bear helps me deal with it, too, deal with grief,” she told the Aberdeen American News .
Sometimes, she’ll sit and sip coffee with her customers, listening to the stories of their losses and visiting about how to work through grief.
In some cases, the bears represent happiness.
“I’m the ’Bear Lady’ to some of the kids (in North Dakota),” she said.
She’s donated bears to the Safe Harbor crisis shelter, the Shriners, local hospitals and SPURS.
Martin knows kids value them.
“I’ll run into customers in town and here the bear is sitting in the cart with them,” she said.
While many of the bears stay local, some go to her grandkids in Alabama, and she has one loftier goal.
“My big dream is to go to the Shriners hospital in Minneapolis and bring a whole boatload of bears up there and meet them,” she said.
Martin has always had a giving nature.
For the last three years, she said, she’s given gifts to families that need a little help over the Christmas holiday. Last year, the gifts included Better Bears.
Each bear typically sells for $30, but Martin doesn’t pocket any profit.
“That all goes back into material,” she said. “What I’d really like to do is set aside funds for day cares in town.”
Martin and her husband, Todd, also run a cattle-hauling company.
“I’m scared of cows, and that’s what we haul. I just needed something (else),” she said. “This has filled all of my voids.”
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Information from: Aberdeen American News, http://www.aberdeennews.com
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