Back where it all began: Walt Disney Hometown Museum showcases family history

Few people have had more of an impact on American culture than Walt Disney. Nearly six decades after his death, the Disney name remains synonymous with family entertainment, from movies and television shows to theme parks, clothing and toys.

Despite his success, however, he remained at heart a small-town kid from Marceline, Mo.

“In 1938, he wrote an article for the Marceline Press when Marceline was 50 years old,” said Kaye Malins, executive director of the Walt Disney Hometown Museum. ”In it, he recounted lots of childhood memories, but he said a really important thing: `More things of importance happened to me in Marceline than have happened since or are likely to in the future.’

“You have to think about what had happened to Walt Disney by 1938. He was born in Chicago, moved to Marceline, moved to Kansas City, moved back to Chicago, went to World War I, came back to Chicago, moved back to Kansas City, opened a studio, went broke, went to California, opened a studio, lost his character Oswald to an unscrupulous person, found Mickey and did Snow White. Yet he said, `More things of importance happened to me in Marceline than have happened since or are likely to in the future.”

Malins knows the Disney story not only through establishing the museum but also from personal experience. After all, not many people can say Walt Disney himself and his wife, Lillian, stayed in their bedroom when they were 8 years old. The city of Marceline passed a bond to build a public swimming pool in 1956, and city leaders thought it should have an important name.

“My dad was on the city council and said, `hey, why don’t we write Walt Disney a letter and see if it would be OK?’” she said. “The first letter he wrote back was that he was thrilled. The second letter was, `are you going to have a dedication? Roy wants to come, and our wives are coming.’”

Although civic leaders were thrilled, they also had a nagging question: Where could they house a national celebrity in the middle of a hot, humid Missouri summer? Fortunately, Malins’ parents recently had built a new ranch-style house with air conditioning.

“They were a young couple and had spent every penny they had on this new house,” she said “The furniture was all hand-me-downs. My dad told my mother, and she cried and said, `No, we cannot have them, because our furniture is horrible.’ The word got around Marceline pretty quickly that Inez would not let the Disneys stay with them, so they said, `Don’t worry — we will move your junk out and move our better stuff in,’ so that’s what they did. So for three days, we had China crystal and fancy furniture.”

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And the Disneys had their choice of bedrooms.

“The first time I met Walt Disney, he was standing in my living room,” Malins said. “I looked up at him and asked, `What bed are you going to sleep in?’ He said, `Where should I sleep?’ I said, `The pink room.’ So my claim to fame is that Walt Disney stayed in my room.”

That visit was the start of a long-lasting relationship between the Malins and Disneys. Walt even arranged for her to work at Disneyland during the summer after she turned 18. She also became good friends with Walt’s sister, Ruth, who had a large collection of artifacts from the family’s time in Marceline, which she wanted her to have when she was gone.

’I flew out to Portland, Ore., before 9/11 with an empty suitcase, thinking there would be enough stuff for an exhibit at City Hall,” Malins said. “They started taking things out of closets and sheds, and I wasn’t going to leave with anything until they knew what everything was. It took about a year, and we documented 3,000 items. They also had me read all of Ruth’s journals so I would understand the family history.”

That collection would become the foundation of the Walt Disney Hometown Museum, which is housed in the town’s historic train depot. The museum opened shortly after 9/11 with a mission to “tell the story of Walt’s time in Marceline and the Disney family.”

Today, the museum is open from March through December, attracting visitors from across the nation and around the world. “Last year. we had 30,000 people,” Malins said. “Every state except Rhode Island was represented, as well as 13 countries.”

Many Missourians, however, may not be aware of what they have in their own backyard.

”It’s interesting that people don’t go to things close to home but will drive thousands of miles to go someplace,” she said. “We are pleased that after people visit, they say, `we had no idea it was like this.’ They probably think we just have 20 Mickey Mouse lunchboxes.”

The 4,000 items on display include:

• Personal family artifacts donated by the Disney family.
• Personal letters written among Disney family members from the 1900s through the 1960s.
• Gifts from Walt Disney to the city of Marceline, including remnants of the original Midget Autopia.
• Photos of Walt and Roy during their visits to Marceline.
• Original artwork by graffiti artist Arcy, including his portrait of Walt.
• Information on The Marceline Project, Walt’s plan to build a live history park in Marceline.
• Reproduction of Park School, Walt Disney’s elementary school.
• Collector’s Gallery, featuring items donated and loaned by Disney collectors all around the world.
• Memorabilia from “The Great Locomotive Chase” (1956) and “The Spirit of Mickey” (1998), two films that premiered in Marceline.

Marceline is only a two-hour drive from Kansas City. Although many of the items on display would appeal to children it is best-suited for those in fifth grade and older. Besides the museum, Marceline offers several other Disney sites, such as the family farm with its Dreaming Tree and its traditional downtown, which inspired Main Street USA at Disneyland.

“If you are a Disney fan,” Malins said, “you really cannot know Walt Disney unless you visit Marceline. “

The Walt Disney Hometown Museum in open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sundays from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. More information is available at www.waltdisneymuseum.org.

–Alan Goforth | Metro Voice