Part II
Chapter Three
Elias, Flora, and Herbert didn’t move to Chicago alone. As the three Disneys made the long trip north from Florida to Chicago, they were accompanied by their unborn second child. Young Flora was only a few months into her pregnancy when the family arrived in Illinois.
Elias wasted no time in finding a new home for their expanding family. Because he recognised the temporary nature of the work that would be offered at the World’s Columbian Exposition, he convinced Flora that they should rent, rather than purchase a house. They soon found a home at 3515 Vernon Avenue, south of downtown Chicago, where their second son, Raymond Arnold, was born on 30 December 1890. The location of the property was as much out of necessity for additional space as it was for Elias’s new job working at the world’s fair: the house sat approximately twenty blocks, or about 2 miles, from the fairgrounds, at the southern edge of Washington Park. As a result, it was fairly easy for him to get back and forth to work every day, either by walking or taking the trams that travelled down the Midway Plaisance, a boulevard surrounded by a greenway connecting Washington Park to Jackson Park, the location of the exposition. As the construction of the fair progressed, Elias found himself walking past the exhibits that would be placed in the Midway Plaisance, including recreations of authentic villages from around the world, a Californian Ostrich Farm restaurant, a tethered balloon which carried passengers 60 metres into the air, and venues for various performances including animal shows and belly dancers. However, it was the World Columbian Exposition’s answer to Gustav Eiffel’s Tower at Paris’s Exposition Universelle of 1889 that was most impressive to those travelling through the Midway Plaisance: an 80-metre wheel that bore the name of its designer, George Washington Gale Ferris.
The work constructing the World’s Columbian Exposition was certainly not always easy. Compared to what he was likely making in Florida, Elias seemed to be earning more money. His wage equalled to around $1 per day (the equivalent to around $28 in today’s money). However, this was well below the national average for carpenters. In fact, carpenters throughout the United States were getting paid an average of $2.52 each day for their work. Unfortunately for Elias and his colleagues preparing the fairgrounds for the Exposition’s 1893 opening, the construction managers of the fair’s buildings needed a large supply of carpenters and other labourers, which allowed them to pay low wages to their workers. Any employee who expressed dissatisfaction with the necessary long hours or low pay could be quickly dismissed for another candidate waiting in the wings who would be content with the same long hours and low pay. The struggles and frustrations brought about by the poor working conditions and low compensation were compounded by the difficulties of winter. In early 1892, the temperatures averaged –23°C, while the winter of 1893 was even colder. Some organised into labour unions to agitate for better treatment.
A number of industrial conflicts broke out in the Chicago area during the early 1890s, many of which were a direct result of the economic recession. A strike at the Pullman factory in Gary, Indiana occurred when the owner of the company, George Pullman, lowered the wages of his workers. This was incredibly difficult for his employees, as they not only worked for Pullman, but rented their homes and bought their food from him too: Pullman owned the entire town in which his factory was located. As a result, when wages decreased, rent and the cost of food remained steady, putting a strain on the working poor who laboured in Pullman’s factories. When the workers threatened to organise, the tycoon outlawed labour unions and laid off 75 per cent of his workforce, replacing them instead with workers who were willing to work for much lower wages.
The workers in Gary were struck hard by their financial strain, and many suffered from homelessness, a lack of food, or an inadequate supply of fuel to heat their homes. It was at this point that a labour organiser, Eugene V. Debs, arrived in Gary, willing to fight for the rights of the workers. Comparing George Pullman to a slaveholder, Debs helped to organise the workers into an official union, encouraging them to strike and urging other members of the American Railway Union around the country to boycott the Pullman railroad cars. As a result of the boycott, rumours began to spread that the American railroad system would cease to transport goods and people, and slow down the transport of mail around the country. The protests soon became violent after Debs ignored an injunction issued by the federal government, forcing it to send troops to occupy Chicago, allowing trains to pass through the city unmolested.
While the strikers lost the battle with George Pullman, their efforts didn’t go unnoticed by others around the city and the nation. Laws began to change, forbidding children from working and instead requiring them to enrol in compulsory schooling until the age of 14. Writers of exposés, such as Lincoln Steffens, began touring the big cities. In his book, The Shame of the Cities, Steffens called Chicago out for being the most violent and filthiest in the country. As the middle and working classes became wary of the American laissez-faire capitalist system, leaders like Debs began to gain followers, advocating for socialist-style governments and placing ownership of the railroads and utilities that were necessary to American livelihoods in the hands of the public.
Debs himself visited Chicago throughout the period of time that he worked with the strikers at the Pullman factory, recognising his responsibility to fight for the industrial workers of the great city, many of whom were immigrants and thus easy to exploit through low wages. He supported Chicago’s industrial workers through his organisation, the Industrial Workers of the World, which was often accused by its opponents and industrial leadership as being socialist. He was joined by other labour unions fighting for better working conditions, including the American Federation of Labor, a craft union, and the Knights of Labor, which welcomed all workers, skilled and unskilled alike. While the American Federation of Labor was relatively new compared with the Knights of Labor around the turn of the century, it quickly surpassed the latter in terms of membership due to its appeal to the urban middle classes, particularly native-born white Americans. It was in this political, social and industrial climate that Elias Disney worked in the early 1890s, one which had an impact on his attitudes toward labour and big business for decades to come.
When he took the job as carpenter at the fair, Elias realised that work would only be temporary. As a result, he used the skills learned on the Transcontinental Railroad and honed in Chicago to start making furniture for local markets.
In 1891, using the money he and Flora had saved up from his work at the World’s Columbian Exposition and sales from his handmade furniture, Elias purchased a 7.62m by 38.1m lot in Northwesttown, which also went by the name Kelvyn Grove, a suburb outside Chicago. The couple made the agreement to build the house together: Flora would design the home and Elias would construct it. The neighbourhood was fairly new when Elias and Flora purchased the land; originally settled around 1885, the area became a popular place to live for German, Scottish and Swedish immigrants due to a nearby railroad station, where they could be whisked away to the numerous manufacturing centres around the city. In 1889, the area had been annexed by the city of Chicago, and the neighbourhood was given a new official name: Hermosa.
As the days for the opening of the World’s Columbian Exposition drew nearer, the global economy was struck by a downturn. As early as 20 January 1891, important banks were failing in Kansas City, Missouri, which led to apprehension for millions of Americans. Union leaders and labourers at the World’s Columbian Exposition used this as an opportunity to leverage better wages and an eight-hour workday. Unwilling to negotiate, the leadership of fair construction, which was headed by Daniel Hudson Burnham, instead hired Italian immigrants to continue construction on a ditch at Jackson Park. In response, on 12 February 1891, more than 2,000 angry workers stormed the worksite armed with sharpened sticks. Two Italian workers were captured by protestors and beaten until police officers arrived to break up the violence.
Labour-induced violence at the fairgrounds also became personal for the Disney family. One morning, while approaching his worksite, Elias saw a small group of recently laid off workers beating up a still-employed carpenter on his way to work; the angry men were frustrated that their victim had retained his job as a result of accepting the low pay of his employer, while they had been fired due to their cooperation with the unions. The man was cowering on the ground, unsuccessfully covering his head and neck while blows and kicks rained down on him from above. Blood splattered and pooled nearby as the well-aimed kicks split open the screaming man’s skin. While Elias felt bad for his co-worker, he decided to discreetly continue walking; with his growing family, he needed income from work, no matter how little his boss offered to pay him. Unfortunately, he was spotted, and the group abandoned their first victim and began to follow their second. Not wanting to show he was scared, Elias didn’t look back or walk faster. A dark flash exploded across his field of vision as his legs crumpled beneath him and he dropped to the ground. Dazed and lying on the dusty road, Elias’s senses drifted as his eyes registered a shovel being dropped alongside him. The dark stain of what he realised was his blood was smeared across the spade, while his ringing ears picked up the sound of yelling and the curses of his attackers. Curling up to protect his vital areas, Elias waited for what felt like eternity until the assault ended as other men on their way to work rushed to his rescue and his assailants scattered. While Elias wanted to project a tough image and decided to continue on to work, his foreman recognised the extent of the man’s injuries and sent him home for the day to recover. It is also likely that Elias’s boss didn’t want the injured man to receive any unwanted attention that could lead to more conflict or attacks on his worksite.
With increased police presence, strikers backed off from violent protest and instead turned to negotiation with exposition officials, beginning talks on 14 February to demand an eight-hour workday, wages adhering to the union pay scale, and the expectation that union labourers would be hired before non-unionised or immigrant workers. When the fair leadership accepted the demand for an eight-hour workday but explained they would consider the others, union leaders threatened to organise unions worldwide to oppose the Exposition.
Unfortunately, the American economy didn’t work in the labourers’ favour. The job market in Chicago continued to decline, leading to more than 25,000 unemployed wandering the streets. Burnham imposed stricter agreements with subcontractors building the structures in the Jackson Park fairgrounds, setting firm deadlines resulting in a harsh financial penalty for each day a deadline wasn’t met. These heightened expectations reinforced the attitude of the fair’s construction manager: for over a year, a sign in his office had instructed workers to ‘Rush’ because the lagging pace at which building was occurring would prevent the Exposition from opening on time.
That same year, 1891, news reached Elias that his father, Kepple Disney, had died in Kansas aged 59, leaving the family farm in Ellis to his wife Mary. It’s likely that Elias’s grief added to the stress he was under at work.
Throughout 1892, the economy continued to sink as more banks and companies failed and went out of business. Fair executives, already over budget, recognised the need to cut costs, and as a result reduced worker wages and began to lay off employees. Samuel Gompers, American Federation of Labour founder and president, accused Burnham of discrimination against union workers. In an effort to save face in a period of union tension, the chief of construction instructed a subordinate, superintendent of construction Dion Geraldine, to investigate the allegation. At the same time, to prove to Gompers that he didn’t discriminate against the unions, Burnham instructed the various chiefs of the construction departments to fire anyone not efficient or performing poor quality work. These were primarily non-unionised workers, as the American Federation of Labour typically protected skilled workers that performed quality work. Burnham also ordered that all carpentry carried out for the fair and its buildings be completed by employees of contracting businesses chosen specifically by exposition executives. As a result, any carpenters not employed by these companies were immediately out of work, ultimately placating some of the demands made by Gompers and other union leaders.
Labour dissatisfaction continued until spring 1893 when union workers walked off the job, refusing to complete the fair until they received a minimum wage. After threats and counter-threats, Burnham agreed to the minimum wage demand, as well as overtime pay for any extra hours worked.
Unfortunately for all involved, on 3 May 1893 a panic on Wall Street caused stock prices to plummet and banks and companies to close their doors. The Pennsylvania and Reading Railroad went bankrupt, followed closely by the National Cordage Company. By the end of 1893, more than 16,000 businesses and 500 banks had failed, leaving approximately 20 per cent of America’s employable population unemployed. The fear of financial instability caused hundreds of thousands of Americans to become more conservative with their finances, leading to low attendance rates in the early days of the World’s Columbian Exposition. Luckily for the construction workers preparing for the fair, however, their work was done until demolition was scheduled at the end of the fair’s season in October, so many unionised carpenters avoided potential layoffs.
Elias’s job as a carpenter for the World’s Columbian Exposition was one of the casualties of the recession of 1893. The layoff came as no surprise; winter was traditionally a slow time for carpenters and construction workers due to the cold northern temperatures, resulting in more competition over jobs. However, the consistent work in Jackson Park with wages higher than what he was used to were a blessing to Elias and Flora. In fact, when Flora announced she was pregnant with their third child, Elias was so thrilled with the financial well-being that employment at the fair provided, he petitioned her to name the child Columbus. Flora explained she would think about it.
The World’s Columbian Exposition officially opened on 1 May 1893. The pomp and ceremony that surrounded the first day of the fair was bittersweet for Elias: his layoff from the construction crew at the fairgrounds, while expected, was disappointing, but the opportunity to celebrate all his hard work was also rewarding. While the Disneys may not have been a part of the crowd amassing at Jackson Park on that first day, the luck of being in the right place at the right time still afforded them the opportunity to participate in a way that many of the fairgoers would be unable to.
Early in the morning of 1 May, twenty-three black carriages lined up in front of the Lexington Hotel on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Numerous local, national, and global dignitaries were seated within the vehicles, including the mayor of Chicago; President Grover Cleveland; and the Duke of Veragua, a descendant of Christopher Columbus, and his wife, the Infanta Eulalia of Spain. Behind the carriages were more than 200,000 Chicagoans on foot or in various vehicles, followed by more than 1,500 members of the Columbian Guard (members of the security outfit responsible for keeping peace at the fair). Collectively, this mass of parading humanity turned east and moved past the home of Elias and Flora Disney, making their way down the Avenue of Nations in the Midway Plaisance on the way to Jackson Park where the true opening ceremonies would take place. One can imagine the pride Elias Disney felt, not only as a Chicagoan, but also as someone who had poured himself into constructing the White City, as he watched the grand procession march past while he worked on furniture outside his rented home.
The Disneys’ life near the fairgrounds and Midway Plaisance was only temporary, however. Since Elias purchased the lot in Hermosa in 1891, Flora had been hard at work drawing up blueprints for the new home. It would be a two-storey, modelled in the worker’s cottage-style typical of Chicago’s suburbs. The first floor opened into a hallway with a narrow wooden staircase. To the right was a parlour/living room with large bay windows at the front allowing for natural light. The back of the house had a dining room large enough for a family of five and an equally large kitchen, complete with water pump and cook stove. Upstairs, there were three bedrooms: one big enough for Herb and Ray with a smaller one for the new baby, as well as a spacious master bedroom complete with a rather large closet. While the house was nothing fancy, the fact that the humble Disneys built it with their own hands made it a very special home. Flora completed her plans on 23 November 1892, giving Elias the green light to begin construction in earnest. However, when Flora announced her pregnancy, her husband realised he didn’t have as much time to build as originally planned: the current house at Vernon wouldn’t be large enough for the growing family.
The new home had a number of features that Elias was particularly proud of. While modelled in the simple steep-gabled worker’s cottage-style, the house’s wooden siding was painted white and finished with bright blue trim, a popular colour choice for the American Victorian-style mansions that were being built by the wealthy. The house sat at the intersection of Tripp Avenue and Forty-Second Avenue, both of which were the only paved roads in the area. With the paving of roads, the municipal government of Chicago decided to lay better, longer-lasting water and sewer lines due to the difficulty of digging up paved roads, especially at the turn of the century. As a result, the Disneys’ house at 1249 Tripp Avenue became the first in the neighbourhood to have both running water and an indoor toilet, which was located in a small closet beneath the stairs to the second floor. This was fairly uncommon: only 43 per cent of homes had inside toilets in the early 1900s.
The house was finally completed in the late spring of 1893 for about $800 and Elias was exhausted; he had been working extra hard in the evenings and during weekends as soon as he’d finished work at Jackson Park. The layoff from the construction crew had been a blessing in disguise; while he was no longer employed, the lack of professional work gave him the opportunity to finish up the house before the arrival of his third child.
This migration from the urban district of Chicago to the suburbs was a common trend with the middle and upper classes in this period. With the arrival of thousands of new immigrants to large metropolitan areas in the United States, those who were wealthy enough left their mansions and homes located on ‘the Avenues’ along the shores of Lake Michigan and began expanding to newly-developed suburbs north and west of the city. The mansions were converted into multi-family tenement units, while a new type of community of platted, or planned, suburbs allowed the well-to-do and working classes to segregate themselves from what they deemed to be ‘undesirables’. These new neighbourhoods created a small-down environment within a short tram ride of the city’s entertainments and amenities. It created a community for residents that enriched the culture of the working- and middle-class family, providing shops, better schools and churches, and social life opportunities for the neighbourhoods’ homogenous residents. Real estate developers for the suburbs capitalised on the family-oriented nature of the new suburban neighbourhoods when they explained that the laws of the developments forbade saloons, drawing the city’s best and ‘the right kind of citizens’ that respectable Chicagoans would want for their neighbours.
Shortly after the Disneys moved into their new home on 24 June 1893, Flora gave birth to a boy. Elias reminded her about his request to name the baby Columbus. She objected, choosing the name Roy instead. However, the problem of choosing a middle name for the new-born persisted. One day, while sitting with the baby in the front parlour of her new home, Flora noticed a large lumber truck driving down Tripp Avenue outside the bay window, likely dropping off wood for new home construction. The name of the company was painted large across the side of the truck: Oliver Lumber Company. The couple decided that ‘Roy Oliver’ went together nicely, bringing Elias’s desire to give tribute to the Exposition to an end.
The couple quickly found that things weren’t as easy with their third child as they had been with the first two. Roy was constantly fussy and often sickly, and it was soon discovered that he was unable to digest milk. When wealthy Aunt Margaret, the wife of Elias’s brother Robert, found out, she wrote to a doctor in Boston who had treated her in her youth. The doctor developed a specialised dairy-free formula and sent it to Chicago. It did the trick. Roy quickly began to grow and had fewer digestion issues. However, the lack of natural milk likely led to a decreased immune system, as illness and disease plagued him his entire life.
As if life with a sickly baby wasn’t difficult enough for Elias and Flora, there was worry too about Elias’s mother, Mary. Unfortunately, it was increasingly difficult for her to maintain the family farm, and on 15 March 1894, it was sold to pay off the debts her husband left behind when he died three years earlier. She soon moved in with Elias’s younger brother Kepple, who, at 29, owned his own farm ranching cattle. While Elias was at peace knowing that his mother was being taken care of by the family, his father’s death and the loss of the farm likely put some strain on him as he was struggling to care for his own family.
Because of the high unemployment rate in Chicago, Elias was unable to find traditional work and instead turned to something he could do that drew upon his skills of carpentry: he decided to continue making furniture to sell. Members of the community had seen some of the pieces he had crafted and began to commission work. Over the next few years, Elias built tables, chairs, and wardrobes, as well as some specialty pieces. His work was so unique and well-made that local furniture stores noticed and began ordering pieces to sell in their showrooms. At one point, early in the days of the World’s Columbian Exposition, he had even been commissioned to produce some pieces for the fair. While a door had closed when he had been laid off from the construction crew at Jackson Park, another had opened for him, one which was much more comfortable and enjoyable for Elias.
This contentment didn’t last long, however. The restless bug which had plagued his family soon reared its head for Elias, and he quickly realised he wanted to use his skills for more than just producing furniture. He and Flora had enjoyed designing and building their home on Tripp and decided to try their hand at building a few more houses in the neighbourhood. The couple purchased two lots down the road from their home on which to build houses, 1141 and 1209 Tripp Avenue, which were both within walking distance of the family home at the intersection of Tripp and Keeler. Over the next few years, Elias would build the two houses, which were similar in structure to his house, in the worker’s cottage-style with bay windows on the front. However, the draw for potential homebuyers was the added bonus of indoor running water and sewage, just like the Disneys had incorporated into their own home. Elias signed the papers for 1141 Tripp over to George Ramonberg, a 42-year-old German immigrant, who in addition to his wife and two daughters, shared the house with another newlywed couple and a few boarders. Shortly after, Elias sold 1209 Tripp to Harvey Craigmile, a railway engineer, and his wife Ethel. Ramonberg, a millwright, and Craigmile were exactly the type of people Elias wanted to sell his houses to: honest, hard-working family men who were employed in Chicago’s burgeoning industrial sector.
Building homes in the neighbourhood meant that Elias and Flora were more involved in the life of the local community and had become well-known by those living around them. Shortly after Roy was born, they joined the congregation of the Hermosa Congregational Church, which met a few blocks away from the Disney home at 1042 North Forty-Third Avenue. It was led by the Reverend H. W. Chamberlain, who strengthened the influence that the church had in the neighbourhood. As the congregation grew and the church established programmes drawing more people from the area, Chamberlain recognised a need to erect a new building. A lot was chosen at 2255 Forty-Second Avenue and a Building Committee was established. Elias’s experience of building homes in the neighbourhood caught Reverend Chamberlain’s eye and he requested that the carpenter sit on the committee.
Chamberlain stepped down from his post now that his work expanding the church’s influence in Hermosa had been accomplished. He moved to Honolulu, placing his flock in the hands of a young pastor, Dr Walter R. Parr. Recognising the piety of Elias and Flora, and their commitment to both the church and the neighbourhood, Parr and his wife Mary quickly became friends with the Disneys, who were given additional responsibilities in the life of the church. Elias became a deacon and occasionally filled in at the pulpit when Parr was out of town, while Flora became the church treasurer and organist.
In early 1900, Parr and the Building Committee decided it was time to begin constructing the new church building. With a change in location, a new name for the church was decided on. It was now called St. Paul’s Congregational. An elaborate ceremony was planned for the ground-breaking to represent the symbolism and importance of the church’s involvement in the community. On the day of the ceremony, 19 May 1900, Reverend Parr arrived at the site early. He began walking the lot, armed with a tape measure and wooden spikes, and began to mark out the external boundaries of the church building. At around 5.00 pm, members of the congregation, Sunday school, Christian Endeavor programme, and other citizens of the neighbourhood began to arrive, many carrying digging implements including shovels, rakes, picks and spades. Some men accompanied their families, pushing their small children in wheelbarrows that would be used to haul away dirt as the ground-breaking commenced. Elias and Flora stood alongside Parr and his wife, greeting everyone who had come to help mark the occasion.
Small groups of people stood around talking while awaiting the arrival of the congregant bringing the plough that would be used in the ceremony. One of the women from the church, Jennie Bradshaw, a member of the church’s Finance Committee, wandered from group to group distributing small badges marking the event. Shaped like sickles, the badges labelled those at the ground-breaking as ‘Reapers’, with a reference to Luke 10:2 below, explaining that ‘the harvest is great but the laborers are few’. On the reverse side, a question was posed to the wearer of the badges: ‘Will you be one?’
Around 6.00 pm, the plough arrived and some of the men set to work attaching a rope to the front. The congregation gathered around Reverend Parr with members of the Building Committee and church leadership standing nearby. After a brief prayer by Parr, the church choir and orchestra led the mass in singing I Love Thy Church, O God. As the last note died out, the reverend cleared his throat and began to address the crowd.
“Tonight we will commemorate this sacred ground for St. Paul’s Congregational Church,” he explained. “This ceremony is symbolical of the united effort that has brought the church to its present strength and that will make it still stronger and of greater usefulness in the future. The dragging of this plough through this soil by all members of the congregation pulling on the rope is symbolical of that which the church will accomplish in Hermosa and all of Chicago. Without the congregation of St. Paul’s working in harmony in the future, the church will fail of its mission.”
Parr looked around the flock of sheep – his sheep – and picked up the rope off the ground, holding it in the air. “I ask of you, men, women and children, to take hold of this rope as we break ground for this, our new church.”
A swarm of young boys quickly ran forward and grabbed the rope as other members of the church began filing toward the plough. The eager youths immediately began pulling the rope so that the plough was flipped and began dragging across the field on its side. A few of the men ran towards the boys and stopped them, one moving forward to reset the plough in its furrow. The boys’ parents, as well as other members of the church, found a spot on the rope, sinking into a solemn state of worship, recognising the gravity of the moment.
Reverend Parr situated himself behind the plough, ready to take the handles when the time came. Dr H.J. Patton and John Ferrier, members of St. Paul’s Building Committee, hitched themselves to the front of the plough as one would a horse. Ferrier joked with Patton that he would only “consent to be yoked in with the doctor on condition that the latter would not shy at white bits of paper or get his feet mixed up in the traces.” The small group of men chuckled at this, including Elias, who hitched himself to the plough in front of Patton and Ferrier; it was Elias’s yoke which was attached to the rope that the congregants would pull.
“You aren’t going to run away either, are you Disney?” Ferrier called.
This gave the men another laugh.
After checking with the three yoked men, Reverend Parr gave the signal to his flock to begin pulling the rope as he pushed his hands down onto the handles of the plough. Immediately, the farming tool leapt into the air as the scores began to pull on the rope. Parr attempted to wrestle the steel-bladed plough back down into the dirt, but to no avail. One of the members, John Keeney, recognised the reverend’s trouble and brought the pulling to a halt. Picking up the plough from where it sat, he walked it back to its original furrow and showed Parr what he did wrong: instead of pushing down on the handles, Parr instead needed to pull up on them to ensure that the blade cut the ground. The order was given and once again the members of the church began pulling the rope, with Ferrier, Patton and Elias digging in their heels as the symbolic workhorses.
As it quickly became evident that this attempt would be successful in breaking ground for the new church building, the choir began leading the congregants in singing the Doxology. Observers from the neighbourhood stood on the street ringing their bicycle bells and cheering, while one member blew into a tin horn in celebration. At the end of the first furrow, Reverend Parr gave Keeney control of the plough, acknowledging that he was “not a success as a ploughman.” Joining his wife and Flora, the reverend watched as Keeney and his congregation completed four circuits around the staked perimeter of the new church building.
After the fourth pass, the celebrants let go of the rope and the Building Committee unhitched themselves from the front of the plough. A team of horses was hitched to the front of the plough and the members of the church, including Parr, grabbed the shovels and began to dig out the furrows, emptying the dirt and sod into the wheelbarrows. The work at 2255 Forty-Second Avenue continued past sundown. After an hour of digging, the work ceased, followed by singing and refreshments. After another word of prayer and encouragement, Parr dismissed his flock.
Over the next few months, Elias and Flora would become increasingly close to the Parrs as a result of Elias’s role on the Building Committee. Parr often consulted his older friend on matters of construction and carpentry, and Elias visited the building site almost daily while checking on the worksites of the houses he was building in the neighbourhood.
The couples became even closer when, in early 1901, both Mary Parr and Flora announced that they were pregnant. Mary and her husband were ecstatic: the young couple was preparing for their second child close on the heels of Ilene, their daughter who was just shy of 2. Elias and Flora, on the other hand, were just as surprised: they hadn’t planned on having any more children after Roy was born in 1893. However, Elias quickly put aside his feelings of shock in favour of anticipation. While visiting with each other on one occasion, Elias and Parr made an agreement: if their wives bore sons, they would name them after each other.
Reverend Walter Parr didn’t keep his end of the bargain – at least not at first. Mary gave birth to a second daughter, who was given the name Bernice. The couple’s first son was born in 1902 and was named Charles. It wasn’t until the Parrs’ fourth child was born in 1904 that the reverend remembered his deal with his friend and gave the baby the middle name of Elias.
But Elias never forgot his promise. On 5 December 1901, Flora gave birth to a son in the upstairs bedroom of their home on Tripp Avenue. His parents named him Walter Elias Disney.