Chapter Six
While his days in Marceline, Missouri certainly had an impact on Walter Disney’s passion for trains and his career path towards creating art, it also inspired a love for nostalgia, community, and small-town Americana that would later be exemplified in his animated shorts, films, and theme parks.
After hearing Uncle Mike’s stories about life on the Santa Fe Railroad and getting to ride on his uncle’s lap in the locomotive, Walter began to spend as much time as possible near the railroad and train yard. He, Roy and some of the boys living on neighbouring farms, including Clem Flickinger and Don Taylor, would run down to the tracks into town and walk up and down the line, balancing on the steel rails. At times, they would lie down on their bellies in the gravel or on the wooden ties and put their ears to the rails to listen for vibrations of an approaching train. The nearby railroad trestles became a playground for the boys, who enjoyed climbing up the wooden support beams, laying across them and watching a train steam by overhead. On sunny days, Walter and Roy would sneak down to the train yards south of town where the sand and coal chutes towered over the locomotives being serviced. If no one was around, the boys climbed up the ladders running along the sides of the chutes and stood in the small sheds perched atop the structures, surveying the countryside and town laid out around them.
One afternoon in 1909, while hanging around the trainyards with Clem and Don, the boys came across a train in the process of being serviced before continuing its journey along the Santa Fe. Don and Clem recognised that their friend didn’t seem to be afraid of anything and always gave into adventure and taking risks, so they dared Walter to give the train whistle a toot. He waited in the shadows of a nearby building until the engineer and trainmen had stepped away, then quickly climbed into the cab of the locomotive. From his elevated perspective above the tracks, the daring boy could see the area around him in case the engineer returned, but the rumbling and hissing sounds emitting from the idling steam engine muted any potential crunching of gravel if an adult should make his way back to the train. Glancing over at his friends who were still in hiding, he plastered a goofy grin on his face and reached for the cord attached to the whistle. Hesitating for a moment, he realised that he still had a chance to back out. But giving up was not something Walter Disney did. As he yanked down on the cord, a long, loud whistle escaped from the locomotive. The boy didn’t wait to see the reaction of the trainyard employees as he leapt from the train and onto the gravel. As soon as his feet hit the ground, he sprinted to where Clem and Don were hiding, and together, the three boys, giggling and cheering, made their escape back into downtown Marceline.
Walter’s exploits spending time along the tracks and in the trainyard weren’t an isolated incident among the boys of Marceline: nearly every young boy aspired to work for the railroad when they got older. Because the town was so important to the operation of the Santa Fe Railroad, the life of its citizens and the local economy centred around providing goods and services that either serviced the trains and rail line or benefited from the trains passing through.
Another local haunt of the youths of Marceline, including Walter and his friends, was the slagheap at Coalmine No. 1 of the Marceline Coal and Mining Company. While the No. 1 mine was one of several on the outskirts of town, this was the closest to the Disney farm. Walter would often lie in the window seat of his bedroom, gazing over the roof of Grandpa Taylor’s house across the street, where he could see the top of the slagheap and mineshaft in the distance. It soon became an object of his imagination, and he secretly claimed it as his own private mountain. He was willing to share ‘his mountain’ with others; he and Clem spent numerous summer afternoons climbing the slagheap, and on one occasion they even got to ride the elevator down into the mine, the cool underground air embracing the sweaty boys who desired an escape from the dry midwestern summer heat.
Life in a small rural Missouri town presented scores of opportunities to an adventurous young Walter Disney. On special occasions, Clem Flickinger’s father would hitch up his buggy and drive Walter and his friends down to the nearby Yellow Creek, approximately 5 kilometres west of the Disney farm, where they would spend the day fishing and swimming. It was here that Walter spent many of his summer days in Marceline, catching catfish and bowheads from the wooden bridge, enjoying a picnic on the banks of the stream and, at times, even stripping off his clothes to swim in the water with his friends. Yellow Creek offered entertainment in the winter as well, as many of the nearby children would venture to skate on the frozen ice until dark when someone would light a bonfire to keep the group warm before they trudged back to their respective homes.
On days that Walter knew his father expected him to work on the farm, the boy would find his own entertainment closer to home. On especially hot days, after spending hours working in the energy-draining sun, he would run across the field to a grove of trees on the southwest edge of the property where a soaring 20-year-old cottonwood tree stood. It was here that the young dreamer would lie amidst the tall grasses at its base, watching the meadowlarks, woodpeckers, and swallows flittering in the fields and branches of the tree. The boy also started to notice the multitude of insects that crawled along the tree’s trunk and amongst the roots poking out of the ground, bringing his Big Chief drawing pad from Aunt Margaret with him to sketch the creatures. The cottonwood became known as his ‘Dreaming Tree’ under which his studies of wildlife would become known as ‘Belly Botany’. Ruth often accompanied her big brother to his Dreaming Tree, and together the two would race around the trunk, climb high into the branches, and lie in the grass watching the clouds race overhead.
When the boy wasn’t spending time alone beneath his Dreaming Tree, he was combining his mischievous spirit with creativity to develop a new characteristic: becoming a performer. One afternoon, while crawling through the lofts of the barn north of the farmhouse, Walter and Ruth discovered some burlap bags. Upon closer inspection, they realised a barn cat was inside, which escaped from its hiding place when it heard the kids draw nearer. But this sight gave the boy an idea: What if he created a tent from this burlap bag for the barn cats to live in? This tent could be shaped almost like a circus tent. Wouldn’t an animal circus be funny? What if he dressed up the farm animals as circus performers and charged his friends to see a show?
So, the boy set to work, cutting the burlap sacks apart and sewing them together, using sticks to hold the inside up like a miniature circus tent. He raided his and Ruth’s dresser drawers, removing some clothes that he thought would look most humorous on the animals, and dressed some up, leaving them in a pen in the barn. Running around to the surrounding farms, Walter and Ruth gathered up their friends, touting a performance of the ‘Disney Circus’ later that day. As their friends showed up at the appointed time, Walter collected the ‘admission’ of 10 cents from each one before having them sit in the grass in front of the barn door. A few minutes later, Walter was leading the barn cats, dogs, and even pigs out of the structure, dressed in his shirts and Ruth’s dresses.
“What kind of circus is this?” Clem Flickinger called out. “You can’t teach a cat much of anything!”
Flora heard the ruckus from the house and walked to the barn, putting an end to her son’s show. She ordered the aspiring showman to return his friends’ money and asked both Walter and Ruth to take their clothes off the animals. One can imagine, however, with a predisposition to humour and mischief herself, a small smile playing across Flora’s lips as she turned around to return to the farmhouse.
Life in a turn-of-the-century town also provided several new opportunities for socialising and entertainment. During the first decade of the twentieth century, downtown Marceline sported a number of independently owned businesses, such as jewellers, restaurants, and department stores, as well as banks and theatres.
As moving pictures and live performance became more popular, small theatres began to move into Marceline to provide entertainment pursuits for working- and middle-class families and individuals. By the time the Disney family moved out of town in 1911, Marceline sported a couple of theatres and an opera house. The Disneys took advantage of these entertainment opportunities on occasion, and it was the magic of these performances that inspired the young Walter Disney to pursue a career in the arts. Cater’s Opera House, owned and managed by local businessman, Dr R.M. Cater, was located at the corner of Kansas Avenue and Howell Street, and primarily showcased travelling vaudeville troupes and performances accompanied by a small orchestra.
It was at Cater’s that young Walter experienced his first live theatre performance: a production of Peter Pan. So excited was he to see the show that had been advertised around downtown Marceline on plastered broadsides for several weeks that he decided to raid his piggy bank for enough change to purchase his own admission. Starring in the titular role was Maude Adams, one of America’s best-known stage actresses who had first portrayed Peter Pan on Broadway in 1905. The popularity of the play in New York led to a nationwide off-Broadway tour, including a short-lived stop in Marceline. The boy perched on the edge of his seat during the battles between Peter Pan and Captain Hook and participated enthusiastically when Adams encouraged the audience to clap in unison to revive an unconscious Tinker Bell. It was the immersion of the audience in the story and the attention to detail in a fantasy world that interested the boy and led to his fondly recalling the production years later.
The nickel theatres in Marceline also provided a multitude of diversions to the population of the rural town, including most of the area’s children. These theatres filled their programmes with films rented from distributors, including adaptations of historical events and great works of literature. Located in a simple storefront, one of the town’s theatres, the Aerodome, showed films projected on a bedsheet to audiences seated in folding chairs. After being released from school one day in 1910, 8-year-old Walter convinced 6-year-old Ruth to join him in seeing a film at the theatre on their way home, paying for her admission. The programme was a ‘Passion Film’, depicting scenes from the life, crucifixion, and resurrection of Christ. Just like his experience watching Peter Pan, Walter was transfixed by the black and white images flickering across the screen, hardly noticing the sound of the film speeding through the projector in the back of the room. When the short film ended, Walter and Ruth exited the theatre onto Kansas Avenue. At first, Walter believed that his eyes were having a hard time adjusting to the darkness he had experienced in the Aerodome over the past 20 minutes. However, he quickly realised it had become dark and the streetlights had come on throughout Marceline’s downtown. Walter took Ruth’s hand and together the siblings made their way home, worried about the punishment their father would levy because of their tardiness. After their 2.25 kilometre walk home, the children found Elias and Flora more relieved than angry, escaping a punishment for their transgression – this time.
In rare instances, the entire family would make the trip south to enjoy an evening in town. Shortly after arriving in Marceline, Elias treated his wife and children to a meal at the newly-opened Allen Hotel, located at the intersection of Kansas Avenue and Ritchie Avenue, south of Ripley Park. While the hotel typically catered to those arriving in town via the railroad, a small restaurant operated off the lobby that sold meals to travellers and locals alike. It was a rare treat to eat at a restaurant when the economic life of a farming family was unpredictable, but somehow Elias was able to find enough money to enjoy an evening at the Allen with the family. Everything was going well until Ruth bumped the table, knocking her plate of food all over her lap and onto the floor.
“Consarnit, Ruth!” Elias cursed. His oldest sons snorted; their father’s propriety forbid him to swear, resulting in him developing his own curses. However, Elias didn’t notice his sons. He was too focused on the crying girl in the chair across from him and the fact that the spilled meal was a waste of his hard-earned money, as the restaurant wouldn’t replace the food that now lay all over the floor and stained his daughter’s dress.
The ruined dress, however, was easy for Flora to replace as she often sewed clothes for her children. When she needed something more specialised than she was able to make, she shopped at Murray’s Department Store, located around the corner from the Allen Hotel, fronting on Kansas Avenue. Flora often took Walter to Murray’s, Marceline’s largest department and dry goods store, where she purchased pairs of overalls for him to wear while completing his work on the Disney farm.
In Chicago, the life the family experienced had been fraught with crime, vice, noise, filth, overcrowding, and an overabundance of businesses and services that had the potential to spoil the Disney children and overcomplicate life. But in Marceline, life moved at a much slower pace and offered opportunities for personal growth and more appreciation of the things – and people – that mattered.
Small-town community also led neighbours to become an extension of one’s family, resulting in spending weekends and holidays together. On Sunday afternoons, after Ruth returned from the girls’ Sunday School class at Marceline’s First Baptist Church, Elias and Flora would load the children onto the buggy and make their way a kilometre west to the farm owned by Manly Howe Taylor. There, the two families, joined by the Rensimer family, would spend the afternoon together enjoying a meal and playing music. The three families relaxed and enjoyed an afternoon of hymns, folk tunes, and classical pieces, as Will Rensimer and Elias played their violins, Ches Rensimer the mandolin, and Winifred Taylor the piano. It was understood that the smaller children (Walter, Ruth, and Ken Taylor) would sit quietly in the corner and listen to the others play music and sing, as both Elias and Manly Howe adhered to the belief of the day that Sunday was for rest and not play. As the afternoons progressed, the children would become restless and squirmy, and Bertha Taylor and Flora finally allowed them to play quiet indoor games such as Old Maid and mumble-peg.
Community organisations also helped to draw neighbours together. Several ladies from Marceline and its rural outskirts set up the Rural Home Circle, a social club where members would read poetry, sew, and quilt together, organise events, and discuss community issues. Flora attended the Rural Home Circle during its monthly meetings, joined by her friends and neighbours, Bertha Taylor and her daughter Winifred, as well as Grandpa Taylor’s wife, Elizabeth, and Emma Phillips, sister of the late William Crane.
Community was essential to the success of small agricultural towns throughout America at the start of the twentieth century. Without neighbours coming together, crops wouldn’t have been harvested, barns wouldn’t have been built, and families would have lived in relative isolation. Instead, as a result of midwestern farm towns being made up of migrants from all over the country, one’s neighbours quickly became adopted members of one’s family, garnering an extended network of honour, respect, and a sharing of talents and time.
While Walter Disney was born in Chicago and spent his first five years there, the role Marceline and its people played in his life stuck with him forever: he considered Marceline, not Chicago, his hometown. Years later, when attending a ceremony in Marceline, he explained to a group of schoolchildren that “my best memories are the years I spent here. You children are lucky to live here.”
It wasn’t the trees that he climbed, the animals that he played with, or the chores that he completed that were of such importance to the young Walter Disney. It was the community – the places and people – that made such an impression on the boy’s life.