How Did Walt Disney’s Mom Die?

While there are arguably many options one could suggest as the best day of Walt Disney’s life, either from a personal or professional standpoint, there’s one that stands out for the title of worst.

On November 26, 1938, Walt Disney’s mother Flora died… and some would argue not only that it was inadvertently his fault, but that it also influenced Disney’s creative efforts for decades to come. How could that be? Let’s find out.

When Walt Disney was born on December 5, 1901, he was the fourth of the eventual five children born to Elias and Flora Disney, who had been born Flora Call. The couple had married on New Year’s Day, 1888. Throughout Walt’s childhood, it is said he found some solace in the care of his mother, especially in contrast to his father, who by most accounts would be considered abusive by modern standards. The family moved often, living in locales including Chicago, Illinois; Marceline, Missouri; and Kansas City, Missouri.

By the late 1930s, even as Walt and his older brother Roy were establishing themselves as Hollywood power players, Elias and Flora were living in Portland, Oregon running a boarding house. In 1938, flush with the massive profits of the previous year’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Walt and Roy celebrated their parents’ 50th anniversary in 1938 by buying them a house and moving them to California. Unfortunately, this gesture of love would lead to tragedy.

The elder Disneys moved into the home in late October of 1938, and nearly immediately, problems arose with the home’s heating system, a then-revolutionary forced circulation system that used a natural gas heater. The Disney brothers sent over a repairman from their studio to fix the malfunctioning system, however the worker would make a key mistake… with fatal results.

November 26, 1938, was a normal day at Elias and Flora Disney’s new home, with Flora at one point excusing herself to use the bathroom connected to the couple’s bedroom. However, when she didn’t return for an unusually long period of time, Elias went to check on her and found his wife unconscious on the tile floor. He attempted to get out of the house to seek help, but quickly found himself overwhelmed, as well. Both would have perished right then and there without the intervention of their housekeeper, Alma Smith, who realized something was amiss when she herself began feeling dizzy. She called a neighbor for help, and together the two were able to drag the Disneys outside. This likely saved Elias’s life, however it was too late for Flora, and she passed away.

In the weeks that followed, it was revealed that Elias and Flora had been felled by Carbon Monoxide poisoning caused by a flaw with the heating system. Specifically, a defective heater lid that hadn’t been attached correctly. According to biographer Neil Gabler, the news crushed Walt. He wrote:

“It may have been the most shattering moment of Walt Disney’s life. Though he seldom exhibited emotion outside of the studio, he was inconsolable — a misery deepened no doubt by the fact that she had died in the new home Walt had given her, and by the culpability of his own workmen. (A report on the furnace ordered by Roy determined that the ‘installation of the furnace showed either a complete lack of knowledge of the requirements of the furnace or a flagrant disregard of these conditions if they were known.’)”

Gabler further explains that Walt and Roy visited their mother’s grave often in the initial months after her death. However, as the years went on, Walt refused to discuss the incident with anyone. According to the author, years later when Walt’s daughter Sharon asked where her grandparents were buried, he angrily responded, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Animation director and historian Don Hahn further spoke of Walt’s reaction, saying “He never would talk about it, nobody ever does,” Hahn told Glamour. “He never spoke about that time because he personally felt responsible because he had become so successful that he said, ‘Let me buy you a house.’”

In the decades since Flora’s death, an urban legend has developed that this event was the catalyst of many Disney films featuring absent or deceased mothers. However, despite Disney’s obvious devastation at Flora’s death, it seems to be a massive stretch to attribute any Disney creative choices to it. For starters, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs — the film which set the template for many of Disney’s films — was released the year before Flora’s death. Furthermore, many of the stores Disney adapted for their films already featured absent mothers as part of their source material.

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Had you heard the story of how Walt Disney’s mother passed before? Do you think there’s any chance it affected Disney’s later creative output? Let us know in the comments below.