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Page 14 of 28 |
Creative
Explosion: |
The Family is Reunited |
Walt with the Academy Award for
the creation of Mickey Mouse,
awarded in 1932
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tWhen the girls were very young, the family employed
a tall Swedish nurse named Ada who helped care for them. Though
both parents doted on their children, it fell to Ada to change
the diapers and take care of their meals. "This is the way things
were done in the early and mid-30s," says Diane. "We were kept
in our little place and didn't have an awful lot of access to
our parents." By the time Diane was seven and Sharon was four,
though, the family didn't need nurses anymore, "and that was
wonderful," she recalled.
In their early years,
the daughters were carefully kept out of the public eye. In
1932, aviator Charles Lindbergh's baby son had been kidnapped
-- a crime that was trumpeted in newspaper headlines on a daily
basis for many weeks, until the child was finally found to have
been killed. This episode was more than just a newspaper headline
to Walt and Lilly. Given their fame, they feared that their
children might also be targets for kidnappers. As a result,
they installed security measures in the house, like steel-reinforced
screens on the nursery, and eschewed publicity that involved
Diane and Sharon. This was an intense time for Walt at work.
Unaffected by the Depression, the studio had turned profitable.
Mickey Mouse and the Silly Symphonies were the kings of the
cartoon roost, winning a slew of Academy Awards. By the time
Sharon arrived, Walt was deep into preparations for "Snow White
and the Seven Dwarfs." |
Still, he and Roy stayed very close to their family.
In 1936 they chipped in on a new refrigerator to give to their
parents in Portland. Roy, by this time, was one of the most
successful businessmen in Hollywood, running the increasingly
complex financial side of the studio. With that in mind, a letter
he wrote to his sister Ruth about the gift provides real insight
into the modest, careful man he remained all his life. He wrote:
"Last night, I bought a Cold Spot refrigerator for Mother and
Dad for Christmas from Walt and me. . . After looking over all
the boxes on the market, I think this box from Sears is just
as good as any of them, and it is considerably less money. "
In 1937, Flora and Elias agreed to
join their sons in California. They had been running a rooming
house in Portland, and although they enjoyed their independence,
it was an activity that no longer made sense. For one thing,
Flora had had a series of small strokes in the mid-30s, and
Walt and Roy were worried about her health. What's more, the
studio was doing well enough that Walt and Roy could finally
afford to take care of their parents. They bought them a house
and installed a housekeeper to help. Lilly and Edna helped them
decorate the new home; Herbert and his family and Raymond were
living in California then too. The family sometimes gathered
on Sundays for barbecues at Roy's house. The transplanted midwesterners
enjoyed hamburgers, corn on the cob, and a competitive game
of croquet (though Walt felt that his brothers ganged up on
him, and everyone suspected Ray of moving the ball when no one
was looking). |
Elias and Flora relax in
the warm California sun
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Raymond Disney in his
element as insurance salesman
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Despite invitations to join the family firm, Herbert
insisted that he enjoyed his life as a mail carrier. Even as
Walt grew steadily more successful and famous, he maintained
that he was envious of his older brother, a man who appeared
to be genuinely contented with his lot in life. Ray, meanwhile,
was an insurance salesman and a lifelong bachelor. He was known
to Walt's staff as a slightly peculiar fellow who would collar
them in the studio to try to sell them policies. Ray constantly
smoked cigars and made his way about Los Angeles on an old-fashioned
bicycle with a big basket in front.
Ruth remained in Portland with
her husband, Theodore Beecher, for the rest of her life, but
she stayed in touch with Walt through letters and calls. When
times occasionally grew difficult for Ruth, Walt and Roy were
always there with a check. Until she died in 1995, Ruth remained
her brothers' No. 1 fan. In a series of letters between Ruth
and Flora, Flora describes the lovely life in California:
the pleasant weather, a beautiful anniversary party her sons
gave her, fun times with Diane, her pride at the success of
"Snow White" -- a steady sequence of happy times. Then, in November
1938, the letters from Flora ceased. |
The gas heating in the house Walt and Roy had
purchased for their parents was defective. Flora had complained
to the boys about the problem. Walt sent studio repairmen
over to the house to correct the flaws -- but they were not
fixed effectively. On the morning of November 26, 1938, gas
fumes spread through the house. As Flora washed up, she grew
woozy and then passed out. Elias discovered her body on the
bathroom floor and tried to carry her into another room. But
the fumes were too much for him, and he, too, fainted. Their
housekeeper had been preparing oatmeal when she herself began
to feel dizzy. Realizing that something was wrong, she rushed
inside to check on the couple and discovered them both on the
floor. Together with the man next door they pulled Flora and
Elias out of the house. Flora was dead. Elias was saved by the
fact that he fainted so quickly; there was less of the deadly
gas near the floor.
The terrible tragedy was compounded
for Walt and Roy by the fact that it was a flaw in the house
they had purchased for their parents that had killed Flora.
Walt refused to talk about it to people at the studio and even
to his daughters in years to come. Sometime later, Diane was
exploring one of her father's drawers: "He always kept an interesting
collection of matchboxes," she explained, "and soap boxes from
hotels, which I used to find fascinating, and I found the newspaper
with the headline about her death in it." |
Flora and Elias, proud and happy in
their new California home.
Flora died shortly thereafter,
in November of 1938
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