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.
A visit to Easton Castle
While recently in Aberdeen preparing for our convention, I had a wonderful visit to the fascinating Easton Castle. The original 22-room Queen Ann house was built by EA Bliss in 1889 on a hill northwest of town. He painted it green. The exterior was later clad in yellow bricks by the second owners, prompting locals to begin calling it Easton Castle. Frank Baum visited and mentioned it in his paper, The Saturday Evening Pioneer. His character “Mrs Bilkins” described parties hosted in the big green house on the hill. If I remember correctly, Baum particularly admired the second floor library. No surprise; I saw it and gasped. The house also was also a favorite of Matilda Jewell Gage. She could see it from her own home as a child and served as the Easton’s insurance agent as an adult. The current owners remember her fondly. Sally Roesch Wagner had a bit of a 1990 documentary about Matilda Joslyn Gage filmed there; it stood in for the Gage house in Fayetteville, NY, which Sally didn’t acquire until 2002. Surrounded by more than 20 unspoiled acres, the property is home to extensive woods and wild life. Deer grazed on the lawn during my visit. The Castle has been in the Holman family since 1967. The Holman daughters who grew up there, Margaret and Rebecca, still call it home today, and will be showing us through it Saturday, July 19. as we explore Aberdeen. Jane Albright
NEW L. Frank Baum songs debut Friday night
Robert Lamont, a long-time Oz Club member and professional musician and educator, initially planned to perform sets emphasizing L. Frank Baum’s published songs—and there will be plenty of those—as our Friday evening concert. Then bits of Frank’s writing that had never been set to music came to mind. And Bob began to hear music. As he put it, “They kept almost writing themselves.” As a result, “attendees are going to hear the premiere of not one, not two, not three, but a total of five ‘new’ songs by L. Frank Baum.” Of course, he told us that a bit ago, so who knows how many we might hear! He’ll also perform some well known popular Oz music in Storybook Land during the park’s annual festival. We’ll be able to hear that performance Saturday during our tour of Baum sites.
Auction listing emails next week
The list of items that will be offered in our fundraising auction Saturday evening will be mailed to all registered convention attendees this week. It will be a pdf, so anyone should be able to open it. Keep an eye on your in box for an email with an attachment from Bill Thompson. We’ve never held our auction after dinner before, so this will be a first. Given that auctions aren’t allowed in the public library, and our other afternoon will be spent on a tour bus, the time to try it became now! Anyone registered for the convention is pre-registered in the auction. You’ll be able to pick up a bidder number that night. We’ll also want to make some decisions that night. For example, a dinner table might be a challenging place to keep pieces you win (“Shall I set this on your dessert plate, or in the butter?”), so we may use the display tables to hold things instead of putting them immediately in your hands. We’ve also been offered a few donations that were not incorporated into the auction database in time. Let’s stay flexible and not rule out finding a way to make them available while we’re all together. And lastly, payment options. The Oz Club is in between long-term auctioneers as Bill steps down after 20 years(!). Jim Rutter has graciously stepped up for this summer, but is not signing up for the long haul. One side effect is that as of this writing, we’ve not found a way to accept direct credit card payments. Cash, checks, and PayPal payments are currently our only options that night. Questions? Email OzConvention@OzClub.org.
Oz art exhibit covered by Aberdeen Insider
The Eclectic Oz exhibit was reported in Aberdeen’s local news last week. Click this link to read it. The reporter pulled it out from behind a paywall today so I could share it. Enjoy! Jane PS Yes, Don Billie had to cancel; I hadn’t realized they were accessing information from that far back or I’d have told her.
Cara Perrion and Sue Boland strengthen our program
Cara Perrion serves the K.O. Lee Aberdeen Public Library as Assistant Director and Community Services Librarian. She will be sharing a look at the library’s remarkable L. Frank Baum Collection with us Friday morning, followed by monitoring us personally accessing the collection in small groups. This is a unique opportunity to see one-of-a-kind Baum material that is known to have survived only in this collection. Since earning her Master of Library and Information Science degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Cara has spent 27 years as a librarian. Her various roles have included circulation, young adult services, community outreach, and administration. “Most of my career has been dedicated to serving the Aberdeen community,” she says, “where I am passionate about connecting people with resources, programs, and opportunities that enrich their lives.” She has found librarianship a perfect path to making a difference in the world. When not reading or talking about books, classes, or events, Cara is an enthusiastic golfer and gardener. Sue Boland is a historian for the Matilda Joslyn Gage Center in Fayetteville, NY. For more than two decades, she has studied the life and times of Gage and her son-in-law L. Frank Baum under the direction of Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner, Founder and former Executive Director of the Gage Center. For our convention, Sue has agreed to join Michael Patrick Hearn in a discussion about the impact of Matilda Jewel Gage on research into Gage and Baum. She will be involved in our tribute to Sally Wagner, and will participate in a panel “Keeping L. Frank Baum’s Spirit Alive in the 21st Century.” Sue spent many years as a senior docent at the Gage Center. She assisted in producing “The Wonderful Mother of Oz” pamphlet, catalogued the center’s Fred Meyer Collection of Oz Memorabilia (calling the task a “wonderful education into Oz fandom”), and curated an exhibit of Gage/Baum family photographs, showing several L. Frank Baum photographs for the first time. Sue has led walking tours of Fayetteville as Gage and Baum knew it and created the first driving tour of Gage/Baum sites throughout Central New York for the International Wizard of Oz Club’s national convention in 2008. You will find her article,“Wicked Influence: Meet the Central NY Woman Who Inspired the Witches of Oz,” at Syracuse.com. While most of her papers and published writings have been about Gage, she is currently researching Baum’s time in Chicago and how the city helped him create the world of Oz. Sue holds Masters degrees from the State University of New York at Albany and the Newhouse School at Syracuse University. We greatly appreciate her willingness to join our program
Otis Frampton brings The Patchwork Girl of Oz to Aberdeen
Otis Frampton is a writer and artist who works in comics, books, and animation. While best known in comic’s circles for Oddly Normal, (Image Comics), he debuted issue #1 of his newly written & illustrated The Patchwork Girl of Oz Jan. 22, 2025. His unique style brings Ojo the Unlucky, Scraps the Patchwork Girl, and Bungle the Glass Cat to comics for the first time since Walt Spouse adapted the book for his Wonderland of Oz comic strip in 1932. Thanks to Otis, fans of this delightful Oz book can again join Baum’s whimsical cast on an amazing quest that takes them from Munchkin Country to the Emerald City! When asked if he could join us in Aberdeen, Otis’s enthusiastic reply said he’d love to be come. “L. Frank Baum is a huge hero of mine, and I know how important Aberdeen is in his story… Just let me know how I can be involved, and I’ll be there.” The territory is familiar; Otis’s wife Kate is from South Dakota and the couple currently lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. “I’ve been an Oz fan all my life, and finally getting to do an Oz comic is a dream come true,” he said. “I’m hoping to share that with other Oz fans in any way I can.” The serialization of The Patchwork Girls of Oz is something he started “just because I wanted to.” Kate works on the comics with him as the “flatter” explaining that she “fills in the flat colors on the line art to prep it for me to color. I lucked into marrying someone who likes coloring book work.” Join us in Aberdeen—and meet Otis—as we celebrate Baum’s life and legacy together. The Patchwork Girl of Oz is published by Image Comics, each 32-page issue has a cover price of $3.99. The complete novel will be told in 20 issues.
Across the Shifting Sands: Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner
As news of our friend Sally’s death spreads across the Oz community, we share the collective sorrow at our great loss. Just Monday Sally sent us her academic credentials in the hope that her part in our gathering would help us secure grant funding. She had every expectation of being with us. Now, she’ll only be with us in spirit. We will use this forum to update you on how we’ll adjust our weekend program, and to outline plans to honor her legacy. Link to news report: Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner
Collectible convention souvenirs
By Jane Albright One advantage for Oz collectors of having a collector chair an Oz Club convention, is that you won’t leave empty handed. And I’m a collector. “Yes” to the usual sticker-and-button materials. But beyond that I opted out of t-shirts and tote bags, preferring to focus on more unique collectibles. Registered attendees in Aberdeen would be smart to save a little space in their suitcase. I’m most pleased with the plushies I had made in a nod to the original Oz Toy Manufacturing Company dolls sold 100 years ago. I’ve spent 50 years dreaming of having one of those antique dolls, and it just hasn’t happened. These 2025 versions will fill that void in my collection. I hope you all like them. Keepsakes will be distributed at both Friday and Saturday dinners. As previously announced, the first 25 people to register will find their name on copies of Oz in Aberdeen (1997), the booklet cataloging the Baum collection at the K. O. Lee Library. And the first 40 to have registered will receive a copy of the special softcover Aberdeen edition of Baum’s Mother Goose in Prose. Auction material will be covered in a separate blog; with nearly 100 pieces up for bidding, you’re sure to find something there you won’t want to leave behind! But I wanted to give you a heads up that convention keepsakes are bound to be collector-pleasers in 2025 Aberdeen.