Wednesday with Walt: Poor Henpecked Father

I love reading old articles and transcripts from interviews with Walt or Lillian Disney about their family life. They had a love for each other that is refreshing to read about. In one of my favorite articles, which was printed in McCall’s magazine in February, 1953, Mrs. Disney talked openly, honestly and with a great sense of humor about the relationship between she and Walt.

In the article she says, “My husband deals in myths. One of the myths which surrounds him, and which he takes great pains to perpetuate, is that he is Mickey Mouse at heart – shy, gullible, henpecked. Walt is always telling people how henpecked he is.”

She goes on to talk about instances where the females in the home (their daughters, Diane and Sharon, and herself) would, at times, try to ‘persuade’ Walt into doing or not doing something. But no matter how much they may have squealed, he was no mouse, he went ahead and did what he wanted to do. A specific story she talked about was Walt’s miniature train which he built and dearly loved. She said she supported his love for the train and she felt like the hobby was good for him as he had a lot of stress. She said that having the train calmed him and he really enjoyed playing with it and giving people rides when they would come around. To her, personally, it was fun to ride for a while but it was kind of dirty.

She talked about an instance in which they were having their brand new home built and Walt wanted to run the track for his miniature train, the Lilly Belle, all over the grounds. The girls in the family had other ideas for the yard, and Lillian also felt that it was a bad idea for a couple of reasons: having all the track laid was going to be very costly, and it would make it harder to sell the house once the girls grew up and they no longer needed such a big house. “So”, she said, “the girls and I, using our best female wiles, tried to persuade Father to keep his train at the studio, where he could play with it at noon and run it all over the lot to entertain visiting firemen.” She said Walt didn’t say much to them when they brought up the idea but then one night, when they were finalizing the plans for the new house, Walt came in with a document. “Walt said, sign or no house”, Lillian stated. She continued, “it was a full legal document he had his lawyers draw up, a right-of-way contract for his railroad through the property, a contract exactly like those used by regular commercial lines. It had taken hours to do, and was so technical we couldn’t wade through it. Pretty soon all three Disney females caught on that we were beaten and might as well laugh about it. We were quite prepared to put our names on the dotted line when Walt picked up the contract and said he’d trust us.” Henpecked indeed!

She spoke of floods that came the next Spring which washed part of the track away. After that, Walt  had the entire bank rebuilt with new drains. She said,”One Saturday I was picking raspberries, the girls were up at the swimming pool with their friends, and Walt was supervising the laying of the new track. Finally, he approached me with a glum face.” He said, “I’m going to get rid of the train if nobody cares about it anymore.” Then she continued, “There is only one thing Mrs. Walt Disney can do at a moment like that. She forgets the berries and goes over to admire the pretty, expensive new drains. Poor henpecked Father!”

I laugh every time I read it because I can see it happening. He was so much like my father, but being born a couple of decades later, my mother was not so accommodating. She would have gone out to see it, after she was finished picking the berries.

Lillian said in the article, “I wouldn’t have missed one minute of the twenty-seven years I have been married to Walt Disney.” Those twenty-seven years would finally turn into thirty-nine years before Walt passed on. Walt is said to have been the most devoted of husbands. When other Hollywood Studios had bad press about the scandalous activities of the studio heads, the Disney Studios never did.

Walt loved his family.  He loved his wife and he loved his daughters; but he was seemingly nowhere near henpecked.

Related articles

• Wednesday with Walt: Integrity (chipandco.com)
• Wednesday with Walt: A Perfect World (chipandco.com)

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