Nix the Bear is what reporter Bob Savage wrote in the November 18,1987 edition of the Santa Clara American Weekly.
It’s inconceivable that anyone could offer such a callous remark about Santa Clara’s favorite stuffed animal, the teddy bear that had commanded the top of the city’s Christmas tree for 76 years. On more than one occasion over the past decades, Teddy faced the danger of losing his time-honored spot, but he has hung on every time.
Nix Bob Savage is what Teddy wrote back – or so says former Deputy City Manager Carol McCarthy, who was the unofficial spokesperson for Santa Clara’s favorite stuffed animal.
The story of how Alice Dixon Hillis’ teddy bear came to be a city mascot is a familiar one. In 1911, Hillis’ father, James Dixon, was superintendent of the city’s new electric company. Mr. Dixon was also in charge of decorating the city’s Christmas tree, which he had personally selected and cut.
“My dad needed a top for the tree, so he ran in and grabbed my teddy bear,” Alice Dixon Hillis told the Santa Clara American in 1988. From then on, Teddy topped every Santa Clara Christmas tree.
Mid-Century Close Calls
Teddy almost missed Christmas 1952, the Mercury News reported, due to injuries. “Teddy lost his head a few days ago and is undergoing repairs at the home of City Electric Superintendent Sherman D. Jackson.”
Later that month, the Mercury reported that Teddy was back by popular demand after his surgery. “His absence this season until Tuesday was the cause of many telephone calls and other inquiries from the city’s children.”
Around 1955, then-city manager Joe Base — perhaps in the base spirit of urban renewal yet-to-come — replaced the aging Teddy with a new bear.
“A couple of years ago the city bought a new teddy bear and hung it on the tree along with the old one,” the Mercury wrote in 1957, “but a wind knocked it down and it disappeared.
“There are those that hint it was not an ‘ill wind’ that knocked the big bear down,” the Mercury continued, “and that there is only room for the little bear that has looked down on hurrying Christmas shoppers all these years.” (The tree used to be put up on the intersection of Franklin and Washington Streets.)
Savage Reporters and an El Niño
When Bob Savage made Teddy’s acquaintance in 1987, the 76-year-old bear was showing his age.
“…Teddy…isn’t even a teddy bear any longer,” Savage wrote. “He retains his former shape only because years ago someone taped him up and the tape is what actually remains…the tape maintains the shape of a mummified teddy bear.”
Despite Savage’s recommendation that the city give Teddy a decent burial and face future holidays with a new mascot, the Santa Clara Women’s Club stepped up to the plate and gave Teddy a makeover. The group refurbished Teddy just in time to sport his new threads for the 1987 holiday season.
The El Niño of 1998 put Teddy in peril for a third time. Rain left the ground too soft for electrical crews to get a bucket truck near the tree and take Teddy down. Teddy stayed until spring, when local birds began to scavenge his fur for nesting materials. This time, Good Samaritan Evelyn Carmichael came to Teddy’s rescue with needle and thread. Today, Teddy looks as good as new.
And so this year, just as he has done for the past 113 years, Teddy will ride up to the top of the city’s Christmas tree with an escort provided by Santa Clara’s municipal power utility’s employees.