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Pasco Woman, 79, Still Loves Teddy Bears

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By Cheryl  Bentley | The Suncoast News

Published: November 5, 2008

The stock market crash of 1929 came a few months after Katie Robinson was born. Her mother said the world wasn't ready for her.

Robinson is still setting the pace. At 79, the retired Air Force medic is an active presence in both veterans' organizations and assisted living facilities, where she, boxer dog Jaycee and cat Timmie Sue visit residents.

For 27 years, until January of this year, she wrote a column on veterans' news for The Pasco Tribune. She ran unsuccessfully for county commissioner against Pasco Commissioner Ann Hildebrand in the 1980s.

And then there is the matter of her teddy bears. Robinson has about 400 of them. They even have their own room in Robinson's cozy little white picket fenced New Port Richey home.

She's always had teddy bears, Robinson says. She remembers her first bear as a child. "We traveled, and I wanted a companion," recalls the woman who went to 13 schools because of her father's career as an army officer.

The bears and other stuffed toy animals, all shapes and sizes and species of them, reflect Robinson's feisty tastes. Just as their owner, they can't be put into categories and neatly labeled. They are from all over the world. They range from a bear in a hula skirt to one named Teddy, who rides atop a car in New Port Richey parades every year.

She has had Big Daddy since 1955. He was a farewell gift from her Air Force buddies when the young Robinson decided to leave the military. According to her father, Charles, one term of service was enough for a woman.

But Charles hadn't evidently learned Robinson was her own boss. She changed her mind and re-enlisted. "I'm just as mean as my father," Robinson says. "I wasn't ready to settle down. I stayed 24 years."

In the days when women were often shadows of their husbands, Robinson was too much her own woman to marry. "I didn't have time. I was having too much fun."

She grows serious. "In those days, when women got married, they settled down. Not me."

The woman who loved to see the world so much that she visited 26 foreign countries and served three tours in Germany collected bears in her travels. Dressed in Arab dress, one bear came from a trip to Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan. He is now surrounded by other furry stuffed animals ranging from cowboys to spacemen and appears to have taken the transition from the Middle East to the Sunshine State in stride.

Choosing stuffed toys is simple, Robinson says in her no-nonsense way. "I look at it. It looks back at me. If I like it, I buy it."

A large 3-foot-long white tiger gave her the look, she recalls. The tiger was on sale at a drug store about a year, and no one bought him. "He looked at me, and I bought him."

That tiger spent some time in the Bear Lair, a spot on her living room for all newcomers. She puts them there to get use to the Robinson household, she says.

Also in the living room, in their own place of honor are the Rolls Royce of the teddy bear world, Steiff and Hermann bears with special stuffing and mohair fur. Robinson has each of those bears insured for up to $200.

In the bear room, she has a bear with a Coca-Cola hat and a bottle full of Coke.

"You turn him on," she explains. "He's suppose to sound like he's sighing, but he really sounds like he's burping."

The little fellow even does a special dance in honor of the drink.

She also has a dozen Humfrey bears from what was then an Eckerd drug store. The Christmas before Eckerd was acquired by CVS, a clerk saved a Humfrey especially for Robinson to make sure one of the bears' most loyal fans didn't miss out on the last Eckerd Humfrey.

Robinson sees no end to the expansion of the teddy bear population. She holds her hands out in bewilderment.

"They just come," she says.

Cheryl Bentley can be reached at 727-815-1069 or cbentley@suncoastnews.com.

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