By lucy probert

Photos by Ted Axelrod

Six years ago, when Laura Wellington was faced with the prospect of raising four young children on her own after losing her husband to cancer, giving up and shutting down was not an option. She had her kids to take care of, as well as two businesses to run.

“When you go through your worst nightmare, everything becomes very clear,” Wellington reflects. “Everything that I went through strengthened me to go on to even larger challenges.” Like trying to make the world a better place for children by creating The Wumblers, an animated children’s show for the preschool set about a collection of characters with important life lessons to teach.

Solid beginnings
Wellington grew up in New Jersey, graduating from Ramapo College with a degree in business and marketing. She met her future husband Dean in the late 1980s at
a restaurant opening. “We hit it off, and within three days were basically inseparable,” she says. The couple was engaged less than a year later, marrying a year after that. Together, they started two companies, both based in Fort Lee. Wellington Consulting Company advises on technology matters; Wellington Financial Systems produces proprietary software. Laura and Dean were living in Tenafly; Laura also taught preschool at a local JCC. Their companies were doing well, she recalls, and things were good: “We had a wonderful life, we were best friends who worked well together.”

After the couple’s youngest child, Isabel, was born, Dean, who had been
living with Crohn’s disease since college, developed a blockage in his small intestine. Tests showed that he had two very rare forms of cancer, and the news was grim. “It was never a question of whether or not he was going to live,” she says. “I knew from the very beginning he was going to die. But, the doctors never took his hope away, and we did everything we could for three years.”

During this time, taking pencil to paper became a means of helping Laura get through her husband’s illness. “I created these characters as a teenager,” she explains, “and returned to them at that time because it was a comfort to me – and also, when my kids became involved, a way to help bring my family closer together.” She showed her drawings to an acquaintance that was doing work for Nickelodeon television. From there, the duo went, as Wellington describes it, “from hand to hand to hand,” ultimately hearing a positive response from one of the creators of the show Barney, who encouraged her to pursue turning them into a children’s show.

At this time in her life, Laura describes herself as “a chicken running around
without a head.” She had to learn the TV-development business, raise four young children and run her other businesses. “I was getting three hours of sleep a night,” she recalls. “I certainly didn’t need this extra work, but it felt right, so I kept on.” And, although the show didn’t really take off until after Dean died in 2002, Wellington has no doubt that her late
husband nonetheless had a hand in its success. “The moment he passed away,”
she notes, “doors started opening for me, and everything started catching speed. On my birthday, I landed a broadcaster – very lucky for a newcomer – and then sealed the deal two months later, on Dean’s birthday. I don’t know if you would call it divine intervention, but a lot of things started happening at that point.”

Air-waves of success
In August 2006, Wellington founded The Giddy Gander Company to handle licensing and production of The Wumblers. The show is currently broadcast nationwide on networks like TBN (Trinity Broadcasting Network) and Smile of a Child, with plans to air in China and Latin America.

The Wumblers – bulbous-shaped, multicolored characters who live in a town called Wumbleton – are born from watermelons, and get their food from the sky. The main character is Bertrum, whose best friend is Raimundo, a bilingual Latin-American snail. “We’re trying to give the message to children about empathy, about being aware of the world around them,” Wellington explains. One of her favorite episodes is focused on the story line in which Bertrum finds out what it’s like to be his mother for a day. When his mom becomes sick, he and his dad have to assume her responsibilities, which helps Bertrum appreciate all his mother does for him. “It’s an important lesson for kids,” says Wellington, “not to just be told ‘this is what I do for you,’ but to realize from the heart the love that goes behind what we do for each other.”

Wellington’s four children – Ian, 14, Jacqueline, 12, Emma, 10 and Isabel, 8 – are very much a part of the Wumbler business. The youngsters helped cast voices for the cartoon, and also participated in the music video Wellington produced as a companion to the series. Future plans for the company include puzzles, games, electronic toys, apparel and books – both children’s and, for older readers, Wellington’s autobiography. Accolades she has received include being named a Garden State Woman magazine Woman of the Year for Arts and Entertainment for 2007, and the Forbes Enterprise Award for small business, also for 2007.

Wellington and her children moved from Tenafly to Ridgewood in the fall of 2006. Family cohesiveness, and conduciveness to family life, was always paramount. “I
wanted the kids to stay in our Tenafly house for a while after their dad’s death,” she says, “so they could have some security and stability. But when we decided it was time to move, there was no doubt in my mind it would be to Ridgewood. It is such a family-oriented town, and we love it.” In her spare time, Wellington takes the kids to the family’s vacation home in Connecticut to go to the beach. She loves to bake, read books and take walks with her dogs, Dillan, a cocker spaniel, and Sarge, a pug. She also enjoys just going to the mall and hanging out with her kids. “We’re a very normal, very close family,” she says, simply.

How does Wellington feel about her kids as Mother’s Day approaches? Very proud, she maintains. “My children are happy, and doing exceedingly well in school,” she
continues. “I’ve spent a tremendous amount of time making sure that they could go on, and not lose their futures to their past, which is very important to me. People who get caught up in their past never move forward, and I don’t want that for my children. They already know how to live a full life. I haven’t let them off because of the tragedy they have been through. I won’t let them use it as a crutch. It’s all about giving back.”

And, like their mom, not giving up. 


Cablevision subscribers can catch The Wumblers Saturday mornings at 8:30 on channel 68.