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Early Exploits: |
From Chicago to Marceline |
The Disney House in Chicago
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If Walt's father was the source of his courage and self-confidence
his mother, Flora (who has been dealt with somewhat more kindly by
biographers and historians) was the source of his humor and love of
fun and play. One day Walt brought home a store-bought practical joke
called a "plate lifter." Simplicity itself, it allowed the joker to
force a plate to jiggle up and down from across the table, by simply
squeezing a little bulb, and forcing air into a mechanism placed under
the plate. "Let's pull that on your father," suggested Flora, who
proceeded to do so. That night, at dinner, Elias' soup bowl danced
around on the table as though enchanted. "My mother was just killing
herself laughing," said Walt. "She kept doing this and finally my
dad said, "Flora, what is wrong with you? Flora, I've never seen you
look so silly." So overwhelmed with mirth was Flora, that eventually
she had to leave the room. "We had a wonderful mother," said Roy,
"that could kid the life out of my Dad when he was peevish." |
Decades later, she was a terrific grandmother as well.
"I remember her, as a kid, being fun to play with," recalled Roy's
son, Roy E. Disney. "She had a way of getting back on your level.
I remember rolling marbles back and forth in a hallway one time. She
was enjoying it as much as I was." In 1988, Ruth wrote this description
of her mother, that goes a long way in summing her up. "She was a
great family manager and very capable in doing anything she undertook.
My father liked to have her take care of all money matters except
those requiring participation by both. She had a very even temperament,
never displaying anger or lack of self-control, yet she held her own
in any situation requiring it. "Before her marriage, she had taught
school. Her father, Charles Call, who had been a school teacher, was
a scholarly, kind and high-principled man. And her mother, Henrietta
Gross, was described by our mother in this way: 'If I could be half
as good as she was, I would be a very good woman.' "Mother did love
to read. She did sewing of every description, making most of our clothes,
men's shirts, quilts, was a great cook, a lover of babies, excellent
with children. She was loved by everyone who knew her.". |
Flora with Walt and Ruth
in a photo from around 1914
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A very proper looking
Roy, dated around 1913 |
A study in contrasts, no one ever doubted Flora and
Elias' commitment to one another. In addition to raising five children
together, they were often partners in business, with Flora helping
Elias design plans for construction projects. Walt was their fourth
child, born on December 5, 1901. He had three older brothers; Roy
was 8; Raymond, 10; and Herbert, 12. Two years later, sister Ruth
was born. Elias was working as a carpenter and builder in Chicago.
But by the time Walt was four, Elias and Flora had become concerned
that Chicago was no place to raise children. Then, as Bob Thomas tells
the story in his biography of Walt, "two neighborhood boys were arrested
for killing a policeman in a car barn robbery. One was sentenced to
Joliet Prison for twenty years, the other to life imprisonment. "Flora,
those two boys are no older than Herb and Ray!" Elias said to his
wife. "We've got to get out of this cesspool of a city." |
From the cesspool they moved to a tiny town called Marceline
that was flowering in the middle of Missouri thanks to the proximity
of the Santa Fe railroad. Elias bought a 45-acre farm there (thus
making Walt a "farm" child as opposed to one of the "city" children
who lived a few miles down the road.) The Disney's white frame house
was set off by many shades of green. Leaf-heavy weeping willows, cedars
and majestic silver maples populated the front yard. When the harsh
Missouri winters melted in the face of a gentle spring sun, the fragrance
of grape arbors, berries, peaches and plum trees and apple blossoms
mingled in the air with the promise of fruit to come. In the fall,
crispy red Wolf River apples weighed the tree branches down heavily
with red apples the size of grapefruit. It was, in a word, paradise
for Walt. He thirstily drank in life on the farm, his soul nourished
in a way that was to provide him with warm feelings that he tried
to communicate for the rest of his life. The idealized Main Street
in Disneyland, the country life depicted in Old Yeller, even the fascination
with animals that led to the True-Life Adventures, all had their origins
on that farm in Marceline. |
Roy, Herbert and Ray Disney swimming in a small
pond near their home in Marceline, sometime
between 1906 and 1908
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