Author: Jane Albright

A past president of the International Wizard of Oz Club, Jane is a life-long Oz fan. She's attended Oz events around the country regularly since 1974 and amassed an Oz collection that ranges from antiquarian books, original artwork, and ephemera to children's playthings, posters, and housewares. In addition to speaking frequently about Oz, Jane has contributed to the Baum Bugle, written for Oziana, and loaned Oz material to numerous public exhibitions. She received the L. Frank Baum Memorial Award in 2000.

Barbara Koelle (1923-2018)

Barbara Koelle (1923-2018) was a lovely woman, thoughtful personal friend, and consistent supporter of the International Wizard of Oz Club.  She joined the Club and began attending conventions in the 1960s when they were held in the resort owned by Harry Neal Baum. From convention speaker to Bugle editor to Club President, if there was a job that needed doing, Barbara was a faithful volunteer.  She chaired committees and hosted parties. She organized a short-story circle for fiction writers, and amassed a fine Oz/Baum collection. She received the L. Frank Baum Memorial Award in 1977 for her unfailing support of the Oz Club. Patty Tobias is writing an obituary for Barbara for the Winter 2018 Baum Bugle. Barb’s daughter Kate will be planning a memorial service for her, most likely in early February. (I will edit a link to details as soon as there is one.) I wanted to give Barbara’s circle of Wizard of Oz friends an opportunity to share their own memories of her and reflections on her contributions to the Oz Club, too. Please take advantage of this blog’s comments section to do that. Personally, Barbara helped me time and again. When I was working on the Oz Centennial convention, she agreed to organize an entire 4-day program of content devoted to literary aspects of Oz. (Others took on programming tracks for stage & screen, collecting, biography, etc.). She was thoughtful in recommending members to serve on the board of directors.  She was a wiser head I could turn to when facing difficult Oz decisions. She sent cards. And she sent clippings; recently, entire files of clippings. Barbara gave me a wonderful little treasure for my collection when I became President, following it with a Scarecrow key chain and a question about the existence of my brain (tongue firmly in cheek).         And memorably, at a Castle Park convention when I was in search of Patty Tobias, who was rooming with her, Barbara opened the door late at night with her hair down. Forty-five years seeing her signature French twist, you’d better believe that moment stands out! With her late husband John, Barbara attended Oz, The National Convention 2012 in Michigan. She was frail, but she greatly enjoyed time we spent together while I showed her images on my laptop that recounted convention history. She also joined us for a bit in Philadelphia (Oz, The National Convention 2016) where she drew friends around her like a magnet; our cluster reminisced about our shared past. She’d written a Bugle essay, “The Boys of Philadelphia,” for the occasion. I’m sure I’ll think of other memories that matter to me, but for the moment I just wanted to get this blog posted so others would have the opportunity to share their stories about Barbara. Please do. I’m sure both friends who knew her and curious others who weren’t so fortunate will appreciate hearing your memories. Update, Dec. 13:  Kate Koelle suggests donations made in her mother’s memory be directed to The International Wizard of Oz Club. We appreciate her thinking of us!  Our mailing address is available in the “Contact Us” section of this website.  Donations may be made online here:  Donate Update, Jan. 13: Services for Barbara will be held 11:00 a.m. March 16 at Trinity Episcopal Church, 301 N. Chester Rd., Swarthmore, PA 19081.  To conclude, here’s a bit from Barbara in her own words. She contributed it to the 2017 Oz Club Calendar when I asked her to reflect on her season as Editor of the Baum Bugle: I took over as The Baum Bugle Editor-in-Chief for the Fall 1979 issue, after a rather casual invitation from the late James P. Haff. Though I didn’t know what I was getting into, I was fortunate in having John Fricke fill the first issue with his trail-blazing articles on the M-G-M movie. My production editor, Patty Tobias (later Dan and Lynn Smith), put the journal together and introduced me to computer-generated proof-reading. And the Contributing and Consulting Editors provided invaluable material and advice. Once launched, I began to enjoy reading the amazingly varied material submitted to The Bugle–-material ranging from the scholarly through the entertaining to the frankly frivolous. I liked an inclusive approach, and on one occasion published two widely differing reviews of Philip Jose Farmer’s A Barnstormer in Oz. A critique of L. Frank Baum’s use of ethnic stereotypes proved controversial among some Club members. I introduced a “Commentary” section, and printed some original stories and poems. Among these were Fred M. Meyer’s “Scraps and the Magic Box,” “The Invisible Inzi of Oz” by Virginia and Robert Wauchope (first appearing in 1926), and Ruth Berman’s tribute, “A Map for Ruth Plumly Thompson.” The latter appeared in an issue devoted to Thompson and featured material by three of her personal friends: artist Marge (“Little Lulu”), author Daniel P. Mannix, and the Bugle’s review editor, Douglas G. Greene. In those days The Baum Bugle was slimmer and color was restricted to the covers. But then, as now, it reflected the knowledge and enthusiasm of its editors, contributors and readers, building on the dedication of its original staff. It is truly a group effort and I am proud to have been part of it.  

Happy Holidays from the Oz Club

Our holiday mailing arriving in members’ homes now.  Please see everything included and act on those that need your attention. The holiday card was created by Mark Manley. You’ll find more of his artwork in both The Baum Bugle and The Oz Gazette. Nick Campbell, editor of The Oz Gazette, has written an original short story to accompany the card. Enjoy! There’s a letter from me recapping some of the highlights of our 2018 membership year, as well as a membership renewal form and return envelope to our Michigan mailing address.  I hope you’ll join us for 2019!  (With zero permission from our Baum Bugle editor to leak anything, I’ll just vaguely suggest that Ruby Slipper fans won’t want to miss the Spring 2019 issue….)  We didn’t include a gift membership form, so if you’d like to give the gift of membership, either copy your form or use the website, Shop.OzClub.org, to join. Completely my mistake as I was the one who oversaw printing and distribution this year. Your ballot for to vote for directors also is included with its own return envelope to the home of our Vice President, Ryan Bunch. Ryan chairs our nominating committee and is responsible for counting votes and reading any comments on those ballots that might come his way. Last and certainly not least, the mailing includes fliers for Oz, The National Convention outside New Orleans in June, and for OzCon International, which will be held in Pomona, California, again this summer. This holiday mailing and the Autumn Baum Bugle are arriving pretty closely together. We are working get the Bugle back on track; I anticipate Winter will mail in January ’19, with the 2019 membership issues mailing on schedule. We will likely include another renewal form in the Winter issue since many members don’t renew until they have it in hand, and we’ll follow that ahead of the spring issue with an email to 2018 members who have not yet joined for 2019.

Oz travels? Take your passport

A small Oz Passport appeared on the market some years back. It’s intended as a little pocket notebook, selling for $3-$6 depending on where you find it. But a pocket notebook isn’t quite enough for Oz fans. We go Oz places. We see Oz productions. We have Oz adventures. Those passports should get filled up with Oz destinations and events. Today the Oz Museum in Wamego, Kansas, All Things Oz in Chittenango, NY, and the Land of Oz Museum in Wausaukee, Wisconsin, all have rubber stamps to stamp visitor passports.  We had one at the Club’s 2017 convention, and at OzCon International this past summer. Help us grow the effort! Contact organizers of Oz events in your area and encourage them to offer a unique rubber stamp or sticker to mark Oz Passports. Carry yours when you go to an Oz event and ask if they can stamp it for you. If not, tape in your ticket stubs or appeal to a VIP guest for their signature; think outside the box to ensure your Oz passport captures your memories. Looking back on Oz trips you’ve taken, how fun would it be to have recorded them all in a passport?  We can’t turn back time, but there are ample adventures ahead. With a bit of team effort, we Ozians can make this a fun activity for passport carriers.  

Beyond Oz: the Club’s 2019 calendar

The Oz Club’s calendar for 2019 celebrates our publication of Bibliographia Baumiana in two ways.  Images and textual points from Baum non-Oz books used in the calendar come from the new collector’s guide. And each month a different collector shares the story behind how they came to have that month’s featured book. Oz and Baum book collecting emerged early the Oz Club’s history as a common interest of most Club members.  The Baum Bugle frequently provided bibliographic details of different books that establish publishing priority; details that clarified first and other editions. Because Baum’s publishers rarely indicated printing history on copyright pages, these details could only be found through extensive comparison of any given book. Dick Martin, David L. Greene, James E. Haff are credited with much of the earliest bibliographic work, which Douglas G. Greene and Peter E. Hanff expanded upon to publish Bibliographia Oziana in 1976. As more information was found, a revised edition was published in 1988. Thirty years later, Bibliographia Baumiana is now available, too. This book (details here) establishes the publishing history of all L. Frank Baum’s non-Oz books. W. Neal “Bill” Thompson is responsible for making this happen, building on earlier research by Peter Hanff and the late Patrick Maund. But back to the topic at hand; our 2019 calendar. Each year we pick a different theme for the calendar and this year Bib Baum was the hands-down favorite. I solicited a dozen collectors about the copies of these books in their collections, and asked them to share their stories.  We have Peter Hanff finding a Denslow-inscribed Father Goose: His Book decades ago, and Bob Baum loaning his inscribed copy of Mother Goose in Prose to the set of DREAMER OF OZ.  Bill Campbell found his first edition Sky Island in its dust jacket at an antique show.  Anne Corner’s John Dough and the Cherub has been passed through her family for generations. (Anne lives in Austria now, but her husband is from Wamego, Kansas, home of the Oz Museum!) Gifts, bargain buys, and the sense of triumphant discovery mark each story, making it an inspiring read. As in past years, the dates in the calendar include all the trivia I could find tied to the theme. (By they way, sorry about that text block slip in June!) The Oz Club calendar is not available for sale. It is our gift, with great thanks, to those who join the Club at membership rates of $100 or more. Thank you, again, to those supporters, as well as to those who contributed their stories, helped with proofreading, or otherwise contributed to the completion of the calendar.  Top of that list? Bill Thompson, who’s incredible work on Bibliographia Baumiana will serve as an invaluable resource to Baum collectors as far into the future as any of us can see.

Ruth Plumly Thompson

Ruth Plumly Thompson honored with historic marker

Ruth Plumly Thompson: New State Historical Marker in West Philadelphia Commemorates Children’s Author of 19 Oz Books The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission recently approved an official state historical marker to commemorate children’s author of 19 ‘Oz’ books, Ruth Plumly Thompson. The enduring popularity of the Wizard of Oz is a testament to its durability. Perhaps less known is that Ruth Plumly Thompson contributed more to the series of books than its creator L. Frank Baum. Between 1921 and 1939, she wrote one Oz book a year, including the Royal Book of Oz, Kabumpo in Oz, and The Wishing Horse of Oz . In total, she wrote nineteen books (in the fourth floor study of her home at 254 S. Farragut Street in West Philadelphia) and created 320 characters, 100 more than Baum had. She encouraged readers to correspond with her at her home address, published at the beginning of every book. She lived with her widowed mother and sister, and her annual income from the Oz books financially supported all three of them. Thompson was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on July 27, 1891 (d. 1976) and began her career in 1914 working for the Philadelphia Public Ledger as a weekly columnist for the Sunday children’s page. Her work there drew the attention of William Lee, vice president of L. Frank Baum’s publisher Reilly & Lee, who offered Thompson the opportunity to continue the Oz series after Baum’s death in 1920. Later, the International Wizard of Oz Club published two more stories by Thompson, Yankee in Oz (1972) and The Enchanted Island of Oz (1976), the latter of which was issued posthumously. In 1968 The Oz Club recognized Ruth Plumly Thompson with the L. Frank Baum Memorial Award. The idea to create a sense of pride in the literary history of West Philadelphia turned into the reality of a ten-foot tall official marker with gold lettering with the generous donation from the Oz Club along with the financial contributions of the residents and neighbors of Farragut Street and Spruce Hill. This state historical marker will be a permanent reminder of a prolific writer and independent-minded Philadelphia woman whose whimsical and humorous writing about the magical Land of Oz will delight a new generation of readers. The celebration and dedication ceremony will take place on Sunday, November 4, 2018 at the University City Arts League from 11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. From there the group will walk in parade style to the historical marker at 254 South Farragut Street for the official unveiling at 1:00 p.m. For more information about the historical marker or the dedication ceremony, please contact Lisa Weidman, Historical Marker Sponsor, at [email protected]

Oz en pointe in Kansas City

Kansas City Ballet premiered a lavish new ballet of The Wizard of Oz. Since KC is my hometown, I was there for opening night, but also for a number of local events designed to promote the production. There was a kick off at Union Station, a talk at the library, a rehearsal, and a book club discussion leading up to opening night. Every event was memorable. It was hard to focus on remarks by Artistic Director Devon Carney and Mayor Sly James at the kick-off event at Union Station, because the area was teaming with Poppy Girls and Emerald Citizens. The costumes were lovely, and the promise of great things to come.  The company gave us a taste of the choreography and our first chance to hear some of the original score written for this ballet. Afterwards they shared the dance floor with the public during a flash mob to Ease on Down the Road. Great fun! Photo ops included posing with a pair of Ruby Slipper ballet shoes. Posters were handed out to the crowd. Choreographer Septime Webre joined Carney at the Public Library for a packed audience. Costumed mannequins allowed us to get up close to the Tin Man, the Wicked Witch of the West, Munchkins and Yellow Brick “Roadie” costumes. This time the stories held my attention. Webre grew up with the Oz books and first produced the story as a child with hand-costumed marionettes.  His desire to bring a fresh new version of the story to the stage has been with him for decades; only now did he feel really prepared to create his vision of Oz.  He shares some of that story online here. I was invited to a rehearsal (the perks of being president of the Oz Club!) and took my friend Paul Schneider with me. It was a working rehearsal, so we held our desire to burst out in exclamations and applause. It wasn’t easy.  The company was rehearsing the Muchkinland scene, giving me an idea of how Dorothy, the two Witches, and an absolutely scene stealing Toto would appear on stage. We met many of the dancers at a reception afterwards, including Amanda DeVenuta who dances the role of Dorothy. Just days before opening night the KC Public Library’s Book Club met to discuss Baum’s original novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. We compared the book to the classic film, and when Devon Carney joined us with his laptop to show us costume and set designs, our collective enthusiasm grew. There was an article in the paper about our discussion you can read if you’re interested. (Link) And finally it was opening night. But that was so incredible a night it calls for a blog all its own….

Performances, Presentations and an Oz Auction; It Can Only Be an Oz convention

OzCon International (Aug. 10-12) offered a wonderful program packed with enough great Oz activity to appeal to all kinds of Oz fans. The year marked the centennial of The Tin Woodman of Oz, so our friend Nick Chopper received extra attention. James Ortiz, for example, joined us to talk about his fascinating and critically acclaimed off-Broadway production of THE WOODSMAN. David Maxine presented what we know about Broadway’s first Tin Woodman, actor David Montgomery.  Eric Shanower walked his audience through different ways the character’s been illustrated.  Jack Haley’s grandson Barry Bregman shared family stories about the MGM star. And Dina Schiff Massachi’s talk brought us clear up to Todrick Hall’s Tin Man. That was just the Tin Woodman; there were roughly two dozen other presentations, too. Baum sites in Los Angeles, JOURNEY BACK TO OZ, Marriages in Oz, MGM special effects, Animated Oz, and Ray Bolger each had a spotlight. Authors shared new books about Matilda Joslyn Gage, Gay Fans of Oz, and newly published Oz fiction.  It was a glorious abundance. There was much more than presentations, of course. The dealer’s room offered rare book specialists, collectibles and fine art.  Dramatics included the delightful Raymond Wohl’s one-man performance as L. Frank Baum, and a “readers’ theater” skit about Baum’s Tin Woodman of Oz. The costume contest, “It’s the Baum” game show, after-hours karaoke, and much, much conversation keep the adrenaline going all weekend. If you’ve never attended an Oz convention, 2019 is the perfect time to change that!  The Club will host Oz: The National Convention outside New Orleans in June, and OzCon International will return to Pomona, California, in July. Conventions attract fans of all ages, and with all interests. There are always first-time attendees as well as those who make it an annual event. We’d love to have you join the fun!

MGM 50th Anniversary Merchandise on Display

The new Oz Club exhibit at the Oz Museum in Wamego, Kansas, offers a sampling of merchandise from the 50th anniversary of the 1939 MGM film. 1989 was a big year for the Oz collectibles market. Not only were many new collectible formats introduced, but manufacturers made variants for each character. Groundbreaking new books about the film were published.  And organizers put extra effort into annual Oz events.   Although the display case can only hold the tip of the Ozzy iceberg that was 1989, museum visitors will get a glimpse at the variety of products and activities created both for fans and the general public. It was great fun to have the display up during Oztoberfest, the museum’s annual Oz event. I always enjoy the opportunity to talk about Oz with others, and there’s no better time than festival weekend when thousands of people flock to Wamego, and hundreds of fans pack the museum. Future plans will celebrate the 80th anniversary of the film with merchandise from the film’s initial release.