Jessica Matthews with her Groo Bears at the Cache Valley Gardners' Market.

Jessica Matthews kayaks on the Mississippi River in Nauvoo, Illinois.

Jessica Matthews with her Groo Bears at the Cache Valley Gardners' Market.

Jessica Matthews kayaks on the Mississippi River in Nauvoo, Illinois.

Editor’s note: This article is part of a series of stories by Cache Valley freelance writer Cindy Knowles based on the idea that everyone has an interesting story to tell.

Jessica Mathew’s pioneer roots run deep in Draper, Utah. Her family settled Draper originally. She grew up in her family-owned cul-de-sac surrounded by corn fields with a dairy farm right down the street.

Today the land has been sold off and her family is surrounded by Teslas, affluent neighbors and other amenities such as the new skate park named after her grandfather. All of the statues in Draper’s historic park are her family pioneers. She is descended from early-day settlers Ebeneezer Brown and William Draper.

With this historic background in her life she chose to get her master’s in history. She graduated with an anthropology bachelor’s degree with a music minor and a museum studies certificate. She met her husband, Jesse Mathews, at an apartment get-together in their singles ward at Utah State University. Jesse was majoring in plant science.

He is from the Flat Nose Ranch in Dry Valley, Nevada, near the town of Panaca. Panaca is so small that his family does their grocery shopping in Cedar City, Utah, 82 miles away.

Jesse and Jessica got married six months before the COVID pandemic. At the beginning of the pandemic she was working at the JOANN fabric store in Logan. Her boss, Darlinda, noticed her looking at bear patterns and gave her a book on how to make jointed vintage bears — stuffed animals with arms that move up and down. Darlinda used to make jointed bears and once had a shop featuring the creations. Jessica had a jointed teddy bear growing up, and the boss’s gesture helped Jessica with the beginnings and inspiration to start making her own bears.

After making a few of the bears, husband Jesse encouraged her to start a business. He was taking an entrepreneurial course at USU and knew the basics of how to start a business. She started stocking up on fuzzy furs to make the bears. The name for the business, Groo Bears, was created from her maiden name.

Jessica originally learned to make the bears the vintage way, using sewn-on eyes and cardboard joints. Now she makes them with safety eyes and safety joints created with plastic instead of cardboard. She wants children to be able to enjoy playing with them like she did as a young girl.

She now has a booth at the Cache Valley Gardner’s Market. She actually sews the bears in her booth while shoppers observe. Each bear has its own personality. The placement of the eyes and mouth create their unique look and disposition.

Jessica’s stack of fur has grown to almost 3 feet tall. She would love to also collect mohair, which is the traditional fur used in authentic bear making, but it is much more expensive. The fur options she uses on her bears make each one a collectable one of a kind.

Her custom bears have been selling very well this summer at the Cache Valley Gardners’ Market. People seem to love the scruffy ones. The softer smooth ones have also been selling well too. There is a style for everyone. The original bears were made with felted wool pads for the feet, but moths were fond of them, so she now uses a high quality linen for the foot pads. She says that people are very surprised that hey are hand made.

Sewing the bears on site has helped to show the care, value and skill she puts into them. People don’t realize how much work goes into one bear until they see her creating them herself. This has been her first year at the market and is her only selling location right now.

Jessica still has her mother’s bear and her own two jointed bears in her personal collection.

“Every little kid should have a childhood teddy that they have played with and can pass on,” she says.

During the pandemic, while working on his plant science degree, her husband had a paid internship in Nauvoo, Illinois. Jesse was working with all the plants, trees and foliage at all the Nauvoo historic sites. Jessica wasn’t able to work while there, and she spent time wandering around the almost vacant historic Nauvoo, which in normal times was usually packed with visitors. It was a living ghost town during the pandemic without all the tourists.

In their free time they would go kayaking with some borrowed kayaks from friends in the area. They spent a lot of time on the Mississippi River among amazing lily pads (shown in a photo with this article).

Even though Nauvoo was mostly deserted during the pandemic, the locals steered them toward some fun things to do. They were able to see things in the Nauvoo area that most tourists never even knew about. The Nauvoo area is also known for geodes. They are found in small pockets by a stream that feeds into the Mississippi River.

While in Nauvoo, Jessie did bring her bear-making supplies but took a bear break to make a large jeans quilt.

Back when Jessica and Jesse first met at USU, a friend of his was eating a grilled cheese sandwich at a friend’s apartment one day. The group all started talking about what they could call a grilled cheese food truck, something Jesse had long dreamed of starting. The idea of “Jesse’s Grill” came up, playing off of the song “Jessie’s Girl.”

He perfected that entrepreneurial idea in the coming semesters, and last summer Jesse had saved up enough to fund a new trailer. He finished it with his family friend, Robert Hansen, a mechanic from Jesse’s farm in Nevada. He and Robert designed and built the trailer from scratch. He tested it out with the fraternities on the USU campus, only selling in the evenings.

Since the whole theme was based off of the song “Jessie’s Girl” (Where can you find a grilled cheese like that?!), the food trailer was a hit with the fraternities. All of his sandwiches are grilled and have the fun names based on popular songs, such as:

• “Wake Me Up Before You Tomato” — with mozarella cheese, tomato, basil and balsamic glaze.

• “Up Town Grill” — wheat bread, mozzarella, chicken, peppers and special sauce.

Jesse also has a booth in the Cache Valley Gardeners’ Market when not doing business in the parking lot of the Big Deal Outlet on 400 North.

When Jesse and Jessica aren’t creating or cooking, they like to spend their free time traveling to Draper and Panaca to see family. They both are enjoying the canyons here, snow boarding, fishing and kayaking. They are video game players and also love reading fantasy, science fiction and biographies.

This couple has found a way to do what they love and bring it to the public for our enjoyment too.

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