Are There Bears On Cape Cod?

 

In a Cape Cod town where surnames like Hallet, Sears, and Howes are common, my father’s name - Derge Dewey Bear - was that much more unusual.  Someone gifted my father one of those wooden sideboards people put over their garages with cool property names like “serenity by the sea” or “drift away cottage” - my father’s was emblazoned with “D.D. Bear.”  My school bus stopped right by the driveway giving schoolmates clear view of the house sign.  I remember a neighbor boy would jump off the bus yelling “D.D. Bear!” before he ran to his house to start pranking me with phone calls for the rest of the afternoon.  Still I’ve always been very proud of the Bear name.

Derge Dewey Bear was from the Midwest.  He introduced into my mother’s traditional New England and Cape Cod recipe box such items as chili, and scrapple, and hogs feet (which I never tried).  What was my father doing on the Cape in the first place?

Derge Bear bartending at The Riverway Restaurant in South Yarmouth

                                                    

My father was born in St. Joseph, Missouri in July of 1924 to James Dewey Bear and Wilma Lorene [Beatrice] Awalt.  The ancestral stories of both these families are fascinating, and I will eventually cover their histories in this blog. A young James Bear worked many years for a downtown St. Joseph department store called Derge - Bodenhauser Clothing Co., and was a star baseball player on the business' team. My father was named for the beloved employer. James served in France in World War I. Wilma was a shop girl and hand model in St. Joseph. 

James Dewey and Wilma married in 1921. Nine years later in 1930, the couple was living in Framingham, Massachusetts where Jim worked as a manager for JC Penney.  They had three sons - Derge, James, and newborn infant Gordon.  Note that also enumerated in the 1930 Census at Framingham is landscape architect Allan Dupee and his wife Hazel. Allan Dupee would ultimately become Wilma's second husband. The family story is that these two couples were friends and played cards together.

      

                

                             

James and Wilma Bear divorced in 1938, however both appear to have returned to St. Joseph before that date - Wilma was photographed in the local newspaper in 1937 working at Kirkpatrick's, a local department store.  In 1940, James is enumerated at the home of his parents. Wilma is living with her parents along with two of her sons, Derge and Gordon.  Son James is still living in Massachusetts with Wilma's sister Sally and her husband Gordon Tucker.

In 1940, Allen Dupee, divorced landscaper, is now living on Cove Street in West Dennis, Massachusetts with his mother. While Wilma is shown to reside in Missouri, it appears by the dated photographs in my father’s album, that the Bears (Wilma and her children) were at least visiting West Dennis at this time. Al Dupee purchased a home on Main Street (Route 28) West Dennis, which would ultimately serve as a very large landscaping business called Mid-Cape Nurseries.

                                         

Wilma (Awalt) Bear and Allan Dupee were married in February 1941 at Raynham, Massachusetts.  Wilma’s sister Sally lived in that area working alongside her husband Gordon Tucker at his dry goods store.  

Back in St. Joseph, Derge was living with his maternal grandparents while attending Central High School.  He graduated in 1942. On his Draft Registration Card in January 1942, Derge is shown as living in Taunton, Massachusetts, where he is also employed at Reed & Barton. His civilian occupation — working in the manufacture of clocks, watches, jewelry and precious metals. Ultimately, Derge enlisted at Fort Levenworth, Kansas on 14 April 1943. 

 

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The family understanding is that Derge and Verna Morgan met in Yarmouth at a pharmacy soda fountain where Verna was working.  It has always been believed that the pharmacy was located in or near to the "four corners" section of South Yarmouth near the Bass River Bridge, and that my father, Derge, had stopped in on the way to visit his mother in Dennis.  He was stationed at the time at Camp Edwards in Barnstable. While I cannot confirm specifically when and where they met exactly - as shown in the 1945 blurb in the Yarmouth Register, Verna was employed at the West Dennis Pharmacy.

Derge Bear and Verna Morgan were married 1 May 1948 at the South Yarmouth Methodist Church. They went on to have six children and were a regular part of the South Yarmouth and Bass River Community.  Both worked at the First National Bank of Yarmouth; Derge working for the Bank as Vice President and Manager through many changes, and until his death in 1985.  Early on, both were active in the community.  Derge assisted in building the community room and stage at the Methodist Church where they were married.  He also worked multiple jobs to support his family, including bartending at the Riverway, while also continuing his education at night at a Boston business college.  His parents, the Dupees, moved to Yarmouth after retiring and selling the landscaping business.  Family from the Midwest continued to visit the Cape on occasion, which was always a time of joy and excitement for the Bear family of Cape Cod.

 

Sources:

Original Photographs, Bear Family photo album, Centerville, MA.

Digital Newspaper Archive, Sturgis Library, Barnstable, MA.

St. Joseph News, Missouri, Newspapers.com.

Ancestry.com.