I am especially interested in Walt Disney's life and in particular up until he became so immensely successful with Mickey Mouse, Snow White etc..
Let me take a brief moment to remind you all of the incredibly varied turns his life took until he began his animation career.
First of all he was lucky enough to experience life in the city and on a farm in the country and he lived both to the fullest. On the farm he was expected to help out with chores including planting fields and plowing. They had pigs, cows etc. an orchard. In the nearby woods he would all kinds of animals, foxes, rabbits, raccoons etc.
The town had a railroad station where his lifelong interest in steam engines would begin. During this time he was also witness to the changing over of horse drawn carriages to horseless carriages, the arrival of the motor car.
Nevertheless life was hard on the farm and finally it had to be sold.
The next years in Kansas City brought quite a different life style with all it's lights and skyscrapers but now more taxing for young Walt as he was now old enough to fully help out supporting the family. He delivered newspapers for 350 subscribers having to wake up at 3:30 every morning to do so. He did this for 6 years in rainstorms or blizzards (and they had them!).
An embarrassing moment Walt never forgot was when he accompanied his mother to sell butter they had made themselves door to door to where some of Walt's classmates lived.
Walt wasn’t much of a student and was at his best when performing school functions especially dressing up as Abe Lincoln and reciting the Gettysburg address to every classroom year after year no less on the petition of the school principal.
In the summer of 1917 Walt sold newspapers and candy and such on trains traveling around the mid-west staying overnight in boarding houses and railroad hotels, pretty exciting for a 16 year old.
Back in Chicago Walt spent hours in vaudeville houses archiving jokes for cartoons. There he worked as a watchman (pistol included) and handyman in the Jelly factory his father partly owned.
Afterwards Walt worked as gateman and guardsman at the Wilson Ave railway line and he was still only 17 years old!
In the summer of 1918 he delivered mail by horse drawn buggy.
As Walt was in training to be shipped off to France to drive ambulances an influenza epidemic struck Chicago and Walt fell ill. He was ordered to a hospital but the driver asked him if he lived in Chicago which he said he did and so the driver took him there instead of the hospital telling Walt you would probably not make it out of the hospital alive which turned out to be true. Two of Walt’s friends were taken to the hospital and died the next day.
In France, where Walt spent 10 months he gained the reputation as an expert guide through France and Germany no less.
Upon his return to America he did not want to return to high school and got his first are related employment at Pesmen-Rubin Commercial Art Studio and the rest as they say, is history.