Our Film of the Month for September is So Dear To My Heart, a rarely-screened feature that was a personal favorite of Walt Disney, since it re-created on film one of the most memorable times of his life, growing up on a small farm in the American Midwest at the turn of the Twentieth Century. Walt said: “So Dear was especially close to me. Why, that’s the life my brother and I grew up with as kids out in Missouri.” One of Walt’s inspirational and supportive family members is the subject of today’s post.
Robert Disney was a younger brother of Walt’s father, Elias. He is one of many Disney family members whose actions forever influenced Walt’s life and career.
"Robert is the one who…persuaded Elias to move to Marceline,” Disney historian Dave Smith says. “Elias, of course, had been living in Chicago, was not pleased with the big city life and its impact on his children. Some local kids had been arrested for robbery, and he was just worried about bringing up his kids in that kind of an atmosphere.”
That was in 1906. Robert owned a few hundred acres of land just north of the town, and in addition to renting this property from his brother, Elias also bought 45 acres. The next five years were deeply influential and had an ineffable impact of Walt Disney throughout his life.
When Elias and Flora determined to move to Kansas City in 1911, the fact that Robert and his wife Margaret were there motivated the decision.
Robert was a successful businessman with diversified investments including land, commercial property, and mining. When he retired in the early 1920s, he chose the perpetual summer and simple small town life of a Southern California hamlet called Hollywood.
When Walt made a decision to leave Kansas City for the greater opportunities available in filmmaking in California, the fact that his always-supportive brother Roy was there, and that the hospitality and support of Uncle Robert was available to help the transition.
Although Robert had encouraged Walt to come to California, when Walt and Roy approached him for financial assistance to start their movie studio in October of 1923, their uncle declined. It may be that Walt had simply overstayed his welcome at his Uncle’s home, or that Walt’s approach to finding work was not as direct as Robert might have respected. It has even been reported that Walt and his uncle had gotten into a trivial dispute about whether Walt’s train west, the Santa Fe California Limited, had passed through Topeka, as Uncle Robert asserted it had, or had not, as Walt maintained. Even after a call to the railroad had proved Walt right—the California Limited line ran south of Topeka through Newton, KS—Robert remained annoyed. Even Walt later admitted, “He demanded a lot of respect and didn’t think I gave it to him.”
Whatever their temporary disputes might have been, by mid-November of 1923, Uncle Robert loaned Walt and Roy 200 dollars, another 150 ten days later, and two loans totaling 150 dollars in December. Walt paid the loans back when he received a payment from the distributor for his first short in January of 1924, and Uncle Robert even appeared as an extra in at least one of Walt’s “Alice Comedies.”
When Roy married Edna Francis in April of 1925, the wedding took place in Uncle Robert’s bungalow at 4406 Kingswell Avenue in Hollywood.
Robert Samuel Disney died in Los Angeles on July 28, 1953 at the age of 91, having seen his faith and investment in Walt and Roy Disney pay dividends beyond anyone’s expectations.
So Dear to My Heart screens daily through September at 1pm & 4pm (except Tuesdays, and September 17 and 24). Tickets are available at the Reception and Member Service Desk at the Museum, or online at www.waltdisney.org.
Image above: Robert Samuel Disney (1861-1953), c. 1920. Courtesy of Walt Disney Family Foundation.