Dick Beymer, Owned, Operated Fuzzy Wuzzy Rug Company

For 42 years, the Fuzzy Wuzzy Rug Co. on Eastlake Avenue East cleaned and restored Seattle's carpets, the bear on its street sign a funny, familiar landmark.

Dick Beymer played a bear-size role in the success of that firm, founded in Seattle by an Englishman in 1900 but bought by Mr. Beymer's father in 1905 and moved to Eastlake in 1947.

"From the beginning, Dad did about everything that is part of running a small business - making new rugs from old ones, cleaning, binding, you name it," said his son Robert Beymer of Guemes Island, Skagit County.

"He started working for my grandfather in the Depression, when the plant was somewhere else. Then my dad and his brother built the Eastlake building."

Mr. Beymer died of heart failure March 4. He was 87.

A Seattle native, Mr. Beymer helped popularize hot-water dirt extraction for synthetic carpets and drapes. He and the family installed a steam cleaner in the plant and had one of Seattle's first truck-mounted steam cleaners.

He also came up with a revolutionary dry-cleaning fluid, said his son. It cleaned a trendy, twisted-yarn rug without relaxing the twist.

Mr. Beymer retired in 1979; his son sold the company in 1989.

"He was a hard worker, no question," his son said. "But he also liked to hike, fish, and ski. He was a founding member of the Trailblazers, a group that carried 5-gallon drums of water with trout fry up to mountain lakes to stock them in the 1940s."

At age 39, Mr. Beymer took up downhill skiing. He was 83 when he finally gave it up. He also enjoyed traveling and had visited Europe several times.

"He was very different, very quiet, yet all the children in the neighborhood loved him," said Borhild Beymer, his wife for the past 37 years.

He took a lot of them on mountain hikes, or skiing.

"He taught them when they got on the trail, to leave everything as they found it," she said. "He had a real respect for nature. He was just a wonderful friend, and so honest. There was no deceit in him at all."

Other survivors include his children Lorraine Cuddihy, Blackfoot, Idaho, and Clinton Beymer, Laguna Niguel, Calif.; sister "Timmy" Wredberg, Des Moines; eight grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

Services were held. Remembrances may go to First Covenant Church, 400 E. Pike St., Seattle, WA, 98122; or to Alzheimer's Association of Puget Sound, 120 Northgate Plaza, Seattle, WA, 98125.