Healing Bears Now at Work Worldwide

Tynsy Foster Has More Than 1,000 Bear Orders After Nationwide Publicity

The small frame house at the corner of Fifth & Grand in Grove has a small sign out front, "Tynsy's Alterations." It gives no hint of the roomful of hand stitched stuffed bears awaiting shipping, the piles of boxes containing fabric from a deceased loved one's clothing, or the incredible woman who works nights and weekends to make what she calls "healing bears."
What started years ago as a word of mouth business and a personal request for a healing bear has now grown to a worldwide effort, due to a newspaper article carried nationwide in April written by a former Jay high school teacher.
Tynsy Foster says that a customer six years ago asked her to make a teddy bear out of a piece of clothing that belonged to her late husband. Since that time she has made more than 1,000 bears, no two alike, using fabric from bathrobes, baby blankets, shirts, jackets, bib overalls, leather jackets or denim pants. She orders the polyester-fiber stuffing from WalMart and carefully stitches the bear together. Her customers also send her obituaries or pictures of their deceased loved one which Tynsy incorporates into the bear's personality. Her husband, Ron, goes to the Grove Post Office each day and comes home with a stack of boxes with requests and fabric inside.
She charges only $20 per bear. "God told me to do this, and He told me what to charge," Tynsy says. "Until He tells me otherwise, it will be $20." It takes about an hour just to stitch up a bear.
Over the past years she has made about 1,000 bears. But recently everything changed. A Claremore free lance writer, Carol Round, did a story on Tynsy for American Profile, a magazine style insert for several hundred newspapers across the country.
"The phone line went crazy. We had to add another line," Tynsy says. In one month, April, she received more than 900 requests for bears. She carefully logs in the calls and notes which states are represented and tells the customer where to send the fabric. She now has a waiting list of 1,013 bears and her husband has had to rent a storage pod to keep the fabric and personal requests in.
"I am going to keep doing this as long as I can," the 58-year-old seamstress says. "God said to me 'my children need to be healed' and I said that's what churches and ministers are for and he said 'No, these bears are for healing and I want all of my children to be able to afford one.'"
She keeps a photo scrapbook of every bear she makes, with the name of the person that requested it. Sometimes people request several bears at once. Every bear has its own personality, from the distinct eyes, feet, or ears, to the way the cloth is sewn.
"The grieving process can last for 20 years," Tynsy says, "and people hold the bears, talk to them, and let out their grief from losing friends and relatives due to illness, Cancer, accidents, heart attacks or even suicide."
Tynsy includes a small printed card tied around the bear's neck, reading "I'm only a bear. I'm made out of clothes from someone so dear who from loving memory will always be here, so when you hug me up close to you…just remember (blank for deceased name) loved you too!"
The day of our interview Tynsy mailed out 10 bears and took 57 phone calls just in one hour. Calls are coming from the Caribbean, Switzerland, Mexico and Great Britain and every state in the union except Alaska and Hawaii. Right now she is getting lots of requests for military bears, for relatives and friends of servicemen and women lost in Iraq and elsewhere.
"A request from Ft. Bragg, NC could generate several hundred bears," Tynsy said.
So if you see an early morning light coming from her home, you know she is carefully cutting the fabric that will become, by day's end, a beautiful, huggable bear that will give comfort for many years to someone in grief, far away.

In photos above: Tynsy Foster poses with two of her hand stitched bears.
A group of bears, awaiting shipping to grieving families.