very old teddy bear

Anybody know anything about this bear. It was my 53yr old girlfriends grandmothers bear. Her grandmother said she had it since she was a little girl, which would put it somewhere into the early 1900's. It is made of of a sponge/rubber for the body, and supposedly was soft and squishy when it was new, and had some ability to bend the arms and legs. I have searched the internet for days and can't find any kind of sponge rubber type of bear...