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Page 5 of 28 Early Exploits: Budding Talent in Kansas City

Walt dressed up as Lincoln

Walt dressed up as his favorite 
President, Abraham Lincoln

tIn the fifth grade, however, he memorized the Gettysburg Address for fun(!) and surprised everyone by arriving at school dressed as the sixteenth president of the United States. In addition to a costume that consisted of Elias' old coat and a homemade beard, he pasted a putty wart to his cheek. 
    Miss Olson, Walt's teacher was delighted, and summoned the principal to see his act. Walt was then shepherded around to perform for every class in the school -- and repeated the performance the next year. "Miss Olson always said I was going to be a real actor because I squinted my eyes on certain passages," Walt reported proudly. Walt enjoyed recognition and applause. He had been bitten by the acting bug.
    Walt's love for performing was shared by his pal Walt Pfeiffer -- Walt's first really good friend. The two boys studied Charlie Chaplin's movies, and tried to emulate the world-famous clown in a series of skits the boys worked out. They were encouraged in this pursuit by the Pfeiffer clan, a large, fun-loving family that enjoyed singing around the piano and joke-telling. They performed at school every chance they got. 
Walt assumed his father would never permit him to participate in amateur-night contests in Kansas City, so he snuck out at night to join in. As it happened, Elias was somewhat more open-minded than the boy knew. "One time Roy got wind that Walt was going to be in an amateur night somewhere," recalled Ruth, "So, we all hurried down to the theater and sure enough he was acting like Charlie Chaplin. According to us, he was the best. But he didn't win the prize." It's worth taking note that this was just one of the occasions when Elias supported Walt's artistic bent. As Walt began to explore his knack for art, as well as performing, Elias agreed to pay for Sunday classes at the Kansas City Art Institute. Walt enjoyed drawing -- and he was good at it. So good, in fact, that he often ignored his lessons in favor of sketching. His notebooks were littered with scrappy little mice. Classmates were particularly entertained by Walt's own versions of a popular comic strip of the time, Maggie and Jiggs. "He wouldn't just copy what was in the newspaper either," recalled one classmate, still with an admiring tone in his voice, some sixty years after the fact. Walt Pfeiffer and friend

Walt Pfeiffer and friend

Walt's seventh grade teacher

Walt's seventh grade teacher
Daisy A. Beck

Now in the seventh grade, Walt had a great stroke of good luck. He was given Daisy A. Beck as his home room and math teacher. By all reports from men and women who recalled Beck's years teaching, she was not just a good teacher; she was extraordinary. A slender, tall, elegant woman with a taste for stylish clothing, Beck was coach of the school's track team at a time when a woman coach was about as commonplace as a horse that played the harp. She spoke, softly, slowly and with perfect grammar to her students. Decades later a cadre of former students  living in Kansas City remembered her with the greatest affection (One woman in her eighties recalled Beck as  "very much a favorite of the boys." Accordingly, a couple of the boys recalled, with the happy glint of memory, that she certainly had a "good build.")
    Walt was never much for athletics. As his brother Roy recalled, "he could never catch a ball with much certainty (chk)". But Daisy A. Beck encouraged him to try out for the school's track team. "Hop out there at recess and show me what you can do," she said. Walt learned how to sprint and even won a medal on the relay team at the school's annual track meet.
     For years after, Walt and his seventh grade teacher traded letters; a correspondence initiated by Walt in 1931. Even as Walt became an internationally known celebrity, a letter from his seventh grade teacher was greeted with excitement. Walt Pfeiffer, who went on to work for Walt in the studio recalled, "Walt would get a letter from her and he'd call me up and ask me if . . .I could come in. He said 'I want to show you something.'" It'd be a letter from Daisy A. Beck; that's how she always signed her name." 
In June, 1917, Walt graduated from the seventh grade at Benton School, and surprised his parents by delivering a patriotic speech. Ruth led the graduation procession (a testimony to her diminutive size more than anything else). Meanwhile, through the graduation exercises Walt drew pictures in his fellow students' class books. Not only was Walt done with grammar school, he was also finished delivering newspapers. Elias had been successful with his newspaper route, and had been steadily investing in a jelly firm in Chicago, the O'Zell Company. Now, he sold his route and brought his stake in the firm to some $16,000. It was time to go to Chicago to oversee his investment and become the head of the company's plant construction and maintenance.
The investment would later turn out to be an unfortunate one. An unscrupulous company president embezzled corporate resources, and it was bankrupt by 1920. But when Elias made his investment it made good sense. He thought that there was a big future to be had in bottled carbonated beverages like Coca-Cola. O'Zell had developed just such a product. Once again, although Elias may not have had great luck, a fair observer has to admire the courage he had in his own ideas; a trait thoroughly shared by his famous son.
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Elias, Flora and Ruth

Elias, Flora and Ruth
after their arrival in Chicago 
in 1917

 
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