My great grandfather Seymour Eaton is probably best known for being the author of the original books "The Roosevelt Bears", aka the "Teddy Bear Books."  Born in Epping, Ontario in 1859, he began his public career as a teacher in the local district school. While teaching school, he continued his studies and in a year or two had his first class teaching certificate. He taught for some time in Pickering College. A few years later, he and John Lindsay established what was known as the Winnipeg Business College in Winnipeg. In 1884, Seymour Eaton married Miss Jane Victoria Adair and in 1886, the family moved to Boston, residing there until 1892. At this time, he originated a home study correspondence course, which was the forerunner of the correspondence schools of today. In 1892, Seymour Eaton went to Philadelphia to take charge of the commercial and financial department of Drexel Institute, remaining there for five years. It was there he began syndicating numerous articles in many of the largest newspapers in the United States.
 Seymour Eaton was the originator of the Teddy Bear jingles, which appeared in the Ladies Home Journal and were printed in the newspapers of every large city. (He used the pen name "Paul Piper" at first as at the time he was a very accomplished college textbook writer. The Roosevelt Bear books were so popular, he decided to drop the pen name later.) He was the originator of the Booklovers and Tabard Inn Libraries (which created the circulating libraries now in use all over the country), the author of many books ("Dan Black, Editor and Proprietor", "The Roosevelt Bears" series, "The Teddy Bears Musical Comedy", "Prince Domino and the Muffles", "The Coal Bill Must Be Paid", "The Telepath", "The Mysterious Giver" and "Sermons on Advertising") and for several years a daily contributor to the Chicago Record-Herald, Chicago Daily News and the New York American. Later he was engaged as advisory advertising council for the New York Times, the Outlook, Literary Digest, Vogue and Vanity Fair. In 1898 Seymour Eaton moved to Lansdowne, PA and in 1901 built his beautiful home "Ath-Dara" where he spent the remainder of his life. |
