Teddy-Bears.Org : Teddy Bear Artist Happy Tymes Collection by Beverly White

Happy Tymes Collection by Beverly White

I live in a rural town just west of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where my husband Mike and I have raised our five children. Amy and Beth our twin daughters, Jon our single, and Matthew and Nathanael our twin sons have all been involved, willing or not, in my business at some time during their years at home. We have nine beautiful grandchildren. I am a nurse by profession, but chose to lay it aside in 1984 and to begin a doll business called HAPPY TYMES COLLECTIBLES. The little wooden nursery rhyme dolls gave way to the bruins in 1985, when I lacked the three bears to accompany Goldilocks. Those first bears are rather amusing to look at now, since there were no classes by experts and books of patterns in those emerging years. I chose then to do it my own way, and still do today.

In 1986-87 I produced my first limited editions, Ben, Betsy and Thom, my Bicentennial Bears. They set the stage for my first original bear pattern in 1988, Say Your Prayers Bear, a kneeling bear whose likeness was taken from a picture in my childhood nursery rhyme books. From the beginning, my bears have had an identifying, embroidered accent line attached to the eyes. It became my hallmark, straight from the illustrations of my old books, and I call them worry lines. Even See-Through-Too, created in 1990 to demonstrate the variety and use of materials in the construction of a teddy, had his Happy Tymes eye accents on the plastic skin. Full color posters of See-Through are still available from Teddy Bear & Friends Magazine. Through the years, I have had two to three skilled helpers. Without them I would never have been able to continue producing the approximately three hundred bears each year from my home-studio.