Grin and bear it: Marie Cowen sells her beloved bear collection
Linda Sappington
A plush bear was just one of more than 7,000 bears up for sale Saturday, Aug. 10.
Linda Sappington
Marie Cowen visits with a friend at her bear sale Saturday, Aug. 10.
Linda Sappington
Marie Cowen’s photo shows bears from floor to ceiling. She’s been collecting bears for 18 years.
Linda Sappington
Rows and rows of bears await shoppers.
Linda Sappington
Cowen’s friend Chris Irvine, right, and his son Cameron spent hours setting up for Saturday’s garage sale, artistically placing more thousands of bears around the yard.
Linda Sappington
Cowen’s friend Chris Irvine, right, and his son Cameron spent hours setting up for Saturday’s garage sale, artistically placing more thousands of bears around the yard.
Linda Sappington
A shopper peruses a table stuffed with ceramic versions of the beloved bears.
Linda Sappington
Hot pink signs lead buyers to Saturday’s bear sale.
Linda Sappington
The morning sun rises over a table of ceramic bears waiting for buyers at Marie Cowen's 7,000-bear sale.
Linda Sappington
Cowen’s friend Chris Irvine, right, and his son Cameron spent hours setting up for Saturday’s garage sale, artistically placing thousands of bears around the yard.
Linda Sappington
Once removed from Cowen's home, the bears filled more than 80 trash bags.
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Marie Cowen’s yard sale was quite the sight to see this weekend.
There were police bears, pilot bears and bears bearing beanies; bare bones bears, bare-naked bears, bald bears and bad bears bearing devil horns.
Bear in mind, there were nearly 7,000 of them — mostly plush, some ceramic and an armful of carved wooden bears, all seated properly atop tarps on Cowen’s manicured lawn, or tiny ceramic ones covering tabletops.
“Have you ever seen such a thing?” one shopper asked as he returned with his son to the bear-laden yard.
Most of the plush bears were priced at $5. Collector items, like the animated Coca-Cola bears were more; Beanie Babies bears were less.
The smallest one was “the size of my little finger,” Cowen said.
The largest? “Almost as big as me. But I’m not very tall; I’m only four-feet, eight inches.”
One shopper said he looked through every bear and couldn’t find the one he wanted.
“Well, I wouldn’t sell that one to you anyway,” Cowen quipped with her dry humor.
Cowen, 85, said she saved 10 or 12 bears for herself, just a few that hold special meaning to her.
“The rest I am closing my eyes. My health has not been good this past year, and I can’t be up on ladder. It’s my health or the bears, and the bears have to go.”
Cowen began collecting bears with her daughter 18 years ago. When her daughter passed away three years later, she just kept on collecting.
The stuffed bears had literally covered every inch of wall, floor to ceiling in every room.
“The bears were terrific insulation for my house,” Cowen said. “They were sound proofing my house. I never knew I had a street right in front of me, never heard a darn ambulance or police siren at night.”
Cowen said she might have a bigger electric bill now, but she’d deal with that when the time comes.
Cowen kept the plush bears clean by tossing groups into the dryer.
“Nobody knew I did it, not even my kids,” she said. “Everybody always wondered how I kept them clean.”
No two bears were alike, “unless I bought a set of twins,” Cowen said.
When her kids wanted to buy her a bear, she’d say, “I already have that one. I could remember every bear I have. It’s really amazing for my age. I could walk right to it any place in my house. They’d always argue, but I would keep my first one.”
One young neighbor girl would bring her girlfriends to see Cowen’s enormous collection.
“I’d tell them, ‘you know the rules. Put your hands behind your back, and you only look. And you never try to steal from grandma because she knows every bear.’”
When Cowen finally decided it was time to say goodbye to the bears, it took four days to bag the menagerie into 80 large leaf bags, plus boxes of ceramic figurines.
As the critters were moved out of her purple and pink bedroom, she thought she wouldn’t be able to bear it.
“I expected to get a crying jag, or something, but I didn’t. I think when I see people buying them, it will just make me happy.”
Removing thousands of bears from the walls have left Cowen’s house, well, bare.
“Right now, it’s kind of depressing,” Cowen admitted. “I’m not going to do anything until after the sale, then the kids and I will get busy, scrub walls, and paint and fill nail holes.”
Bears that aren’t purchased will be donated to groups such as the Boys and Girls Club, abuse centers and hospitals; also the Montana Highway Patrol, who carries stuffed animals in their cars to comfort young children.
