Walt Disney
...three sons to their family: Herbert in 1888, Raymond in 1890, and Roy in 1893. By the time Flora became pregnant again some eight years later, the couple were living in Chicago, where Elias was making a living as a carpenter and builder. On December 5, 1901, a fourth child, Walter Elias Disney, was born, named after the family's pastor. (The pastor, in turn, named his son Elias, after Walt's father.) Two years later a little girl, Ruth, arrived and the Disney family was complete. But Elias and Flora were unsettled by the raucous, saloon-centered nature of their neighborhood. When two boys in the neighborhood were arrested after killing a policeman, that was the last straw.
1. Disney Family Moves to Marceline Missouri April 1906
Elias's brother Robert owned some property in Marceline, Missouri, a community of about 5,000 that had sprung up along the route of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad. And so, in April 1906, the Disney family settled there on a 45-acre farm. They lived in a square, small house built by a recently deceased Civil War veteran named William Crane. Their house was shaded by broad weeping willows, cedars, and silver maples. When they arrived, Walt could smell the perfume of the apple blossoms from the small orchard behind the house. That fall the same trees hung heavy with crispy red Wolf river apples, "so big that people came from miles around to see them," Walt recalled. For the rest of his life he remembered the community spirit that infused this corner of the world -- particularly at harvest time, when friends and neighbors worked together like one big family
Life on the Farm
Walt and Ruth, as the babies of the family, had few tasks on the farm, and those they had weren't overly strenuous. Their memories of the farm were almost entirely favorable -- with the possible exception of the time they got into deep trouble for doodling on...
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