The Way of Oz: A Guide to Wisdom, Heart, and Courage

2: L. Frank Baum: An American Polymath

When I was young I longed to write a great novel that should win me fame. Now that I am getting old my first book is written to amuse children. For, aside from my evident inability to do anything “great,” I have learned to regard fame as a will-o’-the-wisp which, when caught, is not worth the possession; but to please a child is a sweet and lovely thing that warms one’s heart and brings its own reward. L. Frank Baum (1856–1919), from a letter written to his sister Mary Louise in 1897 Frank Baum spent the last fifteen months of his life confined to his bed— writing—being productive even though he was afflicted with a fatal heart condition that had its roots in his childhood. In his book about the fantasy world of Oz, Michael O. Riley says that Baum’s stamina and dedication served him to the end: “For him, his whole life long, living had meant creating —to stop would be to die.” During his final months, weeks, and days, Baum may well have experienced the circular aspect of his life, about which philosopher Harold Rosen has said, “When you come to the end you think of the beginning.” So, we’ll begin our pursuit of the Way of Oz by looking at Baum’s life, starting at the beginning. Lyman Frank Baum, or L. Frank Baum as he chose to be called (he passionately disliked his first name), was born on May 15, 1856, in Chittenango, New York. Chittenango is an Erie Canal town in central New York, fifteen miles east of Syracuse, thirty-five miles east of the easternmost portion of 2 L. Frank Baum: An American Polymath 19.........................L. Frank Baum: An American Polymath the state’s Finger Lakes region. Baum was the seventh of nine children born to Cynthia (Stanton) Baum, who was of Scotch-Irish descent, and Benjamin Ward Baum, whose ancestors had emigrated from Germany to central New York state in the mid-eighteenth century. Of the nine children, only four, besides Frank, lived to adulthood, including two brothers (Benjamin William and Henry “Harry” Clay) and two sisters (Harriet “Hattie” Alvena and Mary Louise). Baum would dedicate various books to members of his family , including his favorite sister, whom he immortalized in a series of volumes (Mary Louise in the Country [1916], Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls [1918]) that he wrote under the pen name Edith Van Dyne. At the time of Baum’s birth and during his early years in Chittenango, his father (trained as a cooper) had a barrel factory, which later fell on hard times, causing the Baums to move to Syracuse, New York, in 1861. Not long thereafter, Benjamin Baum hit it big in oil recovery and sales in Pennsylvania , near Titusville. Baum’s father invested in real estate, was active in stock trading in Manhattan, where he maintained an office, and in 1863 founded the Second National Bank in Syracuse. With some of his recently acquired wealth, in 1866 Baum senior purchased a manicured four-acre estate about four miles north of Syracuse, near the Erie Canal. Because of the hundreds of rose bushes on the estate, Frank’s mother called it “Rose Lawn.” Rose Lawn—with its many plantings, including “every variety of fruit tree and grapevine that would flourish in upstate New York”—would serve as a model for places Baum later created in his books, including most notably the mansion and grounds in Dot and Tot in Merryland. Although his family maintained a townhouse in Syracuse, both Frank and his mother preferred their days at Rose Lawn. Just north of Rose Lawn his father acquired a 240-acre agricultural spread, which included an 80-acre tract known as Spring Farm. The farm produced grain, and there the family raised cattle and horses. Frank Baum’s farm experiences were central to his later writings, including his creation of the Scarecrow character and his many allusions to crows, which held special fascination for him. In the years just before his birth and a month thereafter, Baum’s parents lost three children, probably to infectious diseases, and, worried about their new young son’s apparent congenital heart condition, they were predisposed to spoil him. There’s some confusion in the literature about the exact nature of Baum’s heart condition, whether it was congenital, as his son Oz...