My neighbors in Portland, Oregon, call me Mickey Mouse's Grandmother, and I am proud of my title, for Mickey is such a grand little fellow. His cheerful, happy-go-lucky spirit somehow reminds me of his creator, who, not so many years ago, was a little boy always getting into scrapes and devising ways out. […] When Walter was four years old we left Chicago, moving to a farm near Marceline, Missouri. There he spent six years of happy life, and it was at this time that his father and I first noticed his inclinations towards art. His first efforts took the form of smearings in tar on the sides of our white frame house, some shaped like houses, others like people. Those crude drawings caused my husband and myself to realize that one of our sons liked to draw. After that we noticed drawings everywhere, and they gradually got better. Walter was old enough to know better than to smear up the side of our house. But it is characteristic of him. Whatever he has ever wanted to do he has done without even thinking of the consequences. He has always gone ahead with any of his ideas whether be had the means or not. He never asks questions. […]
DIX note
This article seems to be an adaptation of an article published in 1932 by the Silver Screen magazine.