November 26 - Flora Call Disney

Photo borrowed from geni.com

On this day, in 1938, Walt and Roy's mother, Flora Call Disney, passed away in North Hollywood, California. Information on Flora's life is difficult to come by. We do know that she was born on April 22, 1868 in Steuben, Ohio. Her parents were neighbors of Kepple Disney, Walt and Roy's grandfather. She became a school teacher before she married Kepple's son, Elias, on January 1, 1888 in Lake County, Florida. Afterward, she became a devoted wife and mother to their five children.

While Walt inherited his perfectionism and sense of adventure from his father, Elias, he definitely got his down to earth sense of humor from Flora. He once recalled a time that he got a novelty item called a plate lifter, basically a tube with a bulb at one end that, when squeezed, would cause a dish at the other end of the table to rise. Flora suggested they try it out on Elias. Every time Elias went to take a spoonful of soup, she squeezed the bulb. Apparently Elias was so focused on eating, he didn't notice how much his bowl of soup kept moving. Flora found all this so funny, she eventually had to excuse herself from the table because she was laughing so hard. Elias thought his wife had lost her marbles and never realized what was actually going on.

Picture lifted from fieldtripper.com

Flora was the glue that kept the Disney family functioning. Roy once said that the grumpier his father got, the more his mother would kid him. She made sure that her husband kept in touch with all of their children, no matter how strained the relationships became. She loved entertaining family and friends and was as much a playmate to all her nieces and nephews as she was an aunt. All of which made her death even more heart-wrenching for her two famous sons. Especially since they felt responsible.

When Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs became the success that it did, Walt and Roy decided to spend some of their new found wealth on their parents. They gifted them a new house in North Hollywood, California. A few weeks after moving in, Flora complained to her sons that the house's gas furnace was giving off terrible fumes. The brothers sent one of the studio's repairmen to check it out. Whatever was done to fix the problem wasn't enough. A few days later, Flora would die due to asphyxiation from fumes caused by the faulty furnace. Whether or not Walt ever forgave himself for what he saw as his role in his mother's accidental death (sources vary on that verdict), he did spend the remainder of his days missing the fun and laughter that she had brought into his life.