Welcome to Disney in Review! Today, we trace Walt Disney's lineage, travel to his hometown of Marceline, Missouri, and join him in France during World War I.
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Sources Cited:
1. Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination by Neal Gabler
http://amzn.to/2EdjNYT
2. How to Be Like Walt: Capturing the Disney Magic Every Day of Your Life by Pat Williams with Jim Denney
http://amzn.to/2EFWPY6
3. In the Service of the Red Cross: Walt Disney's Early Adventures: 1918-1919 by David Lesjak
http://amzn.to/2EdW4HZ
Disney History Timeline
Herbert Arthur Disney (December 8, 1888 – January 29, 1961)
Raymond “Ray” Arnold Disney (December 30, 1890 – May 24, 1989)
Roy Oliver Disney (June 24, 1893 – December 20, 1971)
Walter Elias Disney (December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966)
Ruth Flora Disney (December 6, 1903 – April 7, 1995)
Disney Lineage
-d’Isignys of Normandy, arrived in England with William the Conqueror and fought at the Battle of Hastings (October 14, 1066)
-In late seventeenth century, during English Restoration, a Protestant branch of the family moved to County Kilkenny, Ireland
July 1834 (Decade before the Potato Famine)
-Arundel Elias Disney (Elias’s grandfather, Walt’s great-grandfather) sold his holdings and moved from Liverpool to America with wife and 2 kids & his older brother (Robert) and his wife and 2 kids on the New Jersey
1835
-Arundel bought 149 acres along Maitland River and moved to the township of Goderich in SW Ontario’s wilderness (Canada), near Lake Huron
-Arundel built his area’s first grist mill and sawmill, farmed his land, and had 16 kids (8 girls & 8 boys)
1858
-Oldest son, Kepple (25), married Mary Richardson (another Irish immigrant)
-Bought 100 acres of lands and built small pine cabin and moved to Bluevale in Morris Township (north of Goderich)
-Elias Disney (February 6, 1859 – September 13, 1941)
-Kepple restlessly strikes out
-Oil struck nearby in Oil Springs – rented his farm, left family with Mary’s sister, and joined drilling crew for 2 years (Struck no oil)
-Returned to Bluevale, then left to drill salt wells for one year (still no fortune)
-Returned to Bluevale and built new frame house on his land and started farming again
1877
-Kepple left with Elias (18) and Robert (2nd oldest son) heading to California, where gold had been struck
-Only got to Kansas. Kepple bought >300 acres in NW Kansas (Ellis county) from Union Pacific Railroad (trying to get people to settle at division points along the train route throughout the state; Disneys couldn’t get land through the Homestead Act because not American citizens)
-Dry and bitter cold climate/rough frontier, making it hard to farm, so raised livestock instead (sheep and cattle could graze on yellow buffalo grass)
-Difficult to farm, so men join railroad crews and women sell buffalo bones to fertilizer manufacturers
1886
-Winter of 1885/1886 rough (10-12 foot snow banks)
-Kepple and Elias (27) went on a reconnaissance trip to Lake County, middle of Florida with their neighbors, the Call family, including their 16 year-old daughter Flora Call
-Kepple returned to Ellis County, Kansas, but Elias stayed with the Calls in the middle of Florida
Call lineage
-Moved from England to America in 1636, first near Boston then to upstate New York
-In 1825, Eber Call, Flora’s grandfather, left for Huron County, Ohio with wife and 3 kids, to escape hostile Indians and “bone-chilling cold”, and farmed several acres
-Eber’s son, Charles Call, graduated with honors from Oberlin College in 1847
-Charles then headed to California to find gold then drifted around the West for a few yea
