The Lieutenant’s Bear

 

A few weeks back Annie and I were driving west toward Springfield, Missouri to celebrate our grandson, Payden’s, first birthday.  Riding with us was Andy’s wife, Madison, and their daughter, Harper.

Madison, a grade school teacher, started telling me about a book she had recently read to her class.  It told the story of a soldier, a bear, and a little boy.

“And, best of all,” she said, “it’s all true.”

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The story began with a veterinarian named Harry Colbourn, who was a lieutenant in the Canadian Army in 1914.  Harry was aboard a train headed to Valcartier, Quebec for training.  As the transport pulled to a stop in White River, Ontario, Lieutenant Colbourn looked out the window to see a grizzled trapper sitting on a bench and holding the end of a leash tied around the neck of a black bear cub.

Harry’s curiosity was piqued so, even though the train was only due for a very short stop, he jumped off it and asked the trapper for his story.

The woodsman explained that he had killed a bear before he realized she was a mother with a cub.  He felt bad so he had caught the furry little animal and was looking for a home for her.

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Lt. Colbourn paid the man the princely sum, for those days, of $20 and took the cub back aboard with him.  He named her for his home town and soon discovered that she was a sweet-natured and intelligent companion.  When Harry’s commanding officer discovered that one of his officers had a bear with him, he demanded that the veterinarian get rid of her.  A bear was far too dangerous an animal to have around a group of men like that.  While he was talking, the little bear snuggled up to him and won his heart.  She was allowed to stay and soon became the mascot of the Canadian Expeditionary Force.

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Later Lt. Colebourn received orders to England and, of course, his pet went with him.  However, when he again received orders, this time to the Western Front in France, he knew it would be too dangerous for his bear.  He asked caretakers at the London Zoo if they could keep the now not-so-small animal until he finished his tour and returned for her.

Whenever he received a pass, Colebourn would often visit the friendly bear.  She always seemed to remember her friend.

What Harry thought would be a short stay of just a few months at the London Zoo, dragged on with the war to end all wars.  When Harry was released from service in 1918, he realized that his pet was so happy in her new home and so well-loved by children, that he had a difficult decision to make. In the end he just couldn’t take her away from her young fans so, rather than being selfish, he gave the bear to the zoo.

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Although she was now a full-grown animal, the bear remained as gentle as ever. In an interview, one of her keepers, Ernest Sceales, said she was “quite the tamest and best behaved bear we have ever had at the zoo.” Unbelievably, children were even allowed to enter the bear pit to ride on her back or feed her out of their hands.

One of those children was Chris, the young son of a writer named Alexander.  The boy fell in love with the friendly bear, going to the zoo whenever he could to feed her condensed milk and receive big, furry hugs from her.

Chris loved all animals, including a swan he used to feed in the mornings and who her referred to by a name derived from a rather nasty habit that the big birds share with geese, projectile defecation.

Yeah.

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Thus it was that Chris renamed his favorite Teddy bear, which had previously been called Edward, after the real bear in the London Zoo and the swan with the nasty habit.  He renamed the stuffed animal Winnie (short for Winnipeg, Harry Colebourn’s home town) the Pooh.  Winnie the Pooh was a member of Christoper Robin Milne’s menagerie of stuffed animals.  In that group was a mother kangaroo and her baby (Kanga and Roo); a sad looking donkey named Eeyore, a tiger called Tigger, and a baby pig named Piglet.

Christopher Robin’s father, Alexander (A.A.) Milne, was already a prolific playwright, screenwriter, detective novelist and magazine writer but in 1926 he published a book of children’s poetry, “When We Were Young,” which included a poem about his son’s favorite stuffed bear.  He published a full volume of stories, “Winnie-the-Pooh,” in 1926 and, “The House at Pooh Corner,” in 1928.

The tiny cub who had stolen the heart of a young lieutenant headed to war soon did the same for children everywhere.

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Meanwhile, the real bear, Winnie, still lived in London Zoo, where she remained a favorite of children who made the pilgrimage to visit.  When she passed away in 1934 at the ripe old age (for a bear) of 20, her death notice ran in newspapers all around the world.

After the war, Harry Colebourn returned to his home town, Winnipeg, Manitoba where he worked for the Department of Agriculture and opened a small animal hospital.  His great-granddaughter, Lindsay Mattick, wrote the book “Finding Winnie” which told the true story of Winnie, the real-live bear who inspired the most beloved fictional bear in the world, Winnie the Pooh.

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Thanks for sharing the story with me, Madison.

 

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(above) Winnie and Lieutenant Colebourn.

(below) Author A.A. Milne holding his son, Christopher Robin, and his stuffed bear, Winnie the Pooh.

(above) A museum display containing (left to right) Kanga, Piglet, Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore, and Tigger, the original stuffed animals that inspired author A.A. Milne to write his best remembered works.

(below) A short video giving some of the information contained in my post.