This was on the the news the other day in Chesterfield Virginia. Lori Gongaware thinks she should be in the Guinness book of World Records for her beaver collection. I coughed politely into my beaver handkerchief and wished her well.
Chesterfield woman hopes to break Guinness World Record with her beaver collection
“I tend to take things to an extreme,” said collector Lori Gongaware.”
Lori says this all started as a joke but that joke blossomed into a collection that now takes up a whole room in her home.
“I thought ‘wouldn’t it be funny to have a beaver collection that was beaver animals but then have one beaver-cleaver from beaver-cleaver,’” said Gongaware. “I got everything. I got bottle openers, coffee cups, stampers, pencil sharpers and even a tattoo.”
Lori’s love for beavers has brought her more than just joy, but a chance to land her in the record books. “When I first started think of the record I was like gosh, I think that I probably have the most beaver items of anyone,” said Gongaware.
I can only smile indulgently say “Bless her heart” and pat her affectionately on the shoulder. Because the inside of my entire home, car, garden and garage would make the inside of her guest bedroom look like a n scale dollhouse. My collection came through design and accident and gifts and projects and silent auction items from around the world that we had to bid on because they were too cool to pass up. My collection is a working collection. meaning anyone of those beavers might be used for a event or purpose on any given day, An art project an educational tool or an exhibit or a christmas tree.
There’s a nice video of Lori’s collection at the link that I sadly can’t share here. It provides an excellent opportunity to say how many of these I already have. 1456? Good lord if you were to include children’s creations I would be many times that figure. Here is what Ben Goldfarb had to say about it in Eager. I was deeply offended when I first read it because it makes me look like a kook. But I have since accepted the truth and realized I kind of am.
To my knowledge, the world’s largest collection of beaver-themed tchotchkes, knickknacks, and memorabilia is housed in an oak-shaded street in Martinez, California. To enter, you must pass beneath the mural that hangs over the front porch — a reddish beaver, stick grasped in forepaws, tail raised in salutation. The dim interior has the feel of a shrine. Beaver magnets cling to the refrigerator; plush beavers perch atop the bureaus; a gallery’s worth of beaver paintings, prints, and posters stare down from every wall. Gnawed stumps rest next to the fireplace. Embroidered beaver napkins hang in the kitchen. In the backyard, a clay beaver crouches in the birdbath. If I’d come during Christmas, I would have seen a cardboard beaver cut-out, roughly the size of a black bear, strung with lights on the front lawn.
The fanatical curator of this collection is a candid, vivacious woman named Heidi Perryman, a child psychologist who, through willpower and single-mindedness, has become one of the planet’s foremost authorities on Castor canadensis. After months of exchanged emails, Perryman and I resolved to rendezvous in Martinez on the Fourth of July.
So go ahead, Lori. Be in the Guinness book of records. But we all know the truth. And it’s already in print.
