Mrs. Baum Speaks to the Press

From the 24 Oct 1914 Duluth News Tribune:

Mrs. L. Frank Baum of Hollywood, Cal., who has been the guest of her sister, Mrs. H. L. Gage, left yesterday for various points before returning to her home. In itself, the announcement seems a simple one, but Mrs. Baum is none other than the wife of the well-known writer of children’s stories, one of which, “The Patchwork Girl of Oz,” has just been shown as a motion picture at the Rex. “The Wizard of Oz” is the most famous of Baum’s books.

“I have enjoyed my short stay in Duluth,” Mrs. Baum said yesterday, just before her departure, “but I would not live anywhere except in California. I am a New Yorker bred and born. Formerly Mr. Baum and I made the trip back and forth every year or so, but when our boys grew older we decided to make our permanent home in California, and now I feel that I could not be happy anywhere else. I left three chrysanthemum plants just beginning to bloom when I came away, and I must see how they are progressing. Besides, I want to see Mr. Baum.

“He wants to see me, too, I am sure,” she continued with a pretty laugh. “You know our ‘Baby’ has married recently, and that leaves us alone. We are more dependent on each other’s society than we were before. Then there is my club work. I think the salvation of a woman when her children have married and gone out into the world is plenty of work. Club work in California is both delightful and exacting, and Mr. Baum has his writing. So we are both provided for.”

Mrs. Baum will go first to Chicago to see a son, leaving about Wednesday for Joliet to see another son. Then she will return to her beloved Hollywood. She said yesterday that the motion picture scenes of “The Patchwork Girl of Oz” were taken in and around Hollywood.

This article is headlined “‘Oz’ Author’s Wife Ends Visit Here; Believes in Work.”

I found it in a search of a newspaper database for the phrase “patchwork girl.” Most of the articles related to the 1914 movie, not Baum’s novel. They were generally positive. Several, it was interesting to see, referred to the movie as adapted from Baum’s “extravaganza,” which was the term for a stage show like the popular 1902-03 Wizard of Oz, but there had been no stage version of The Patchwork Girl of Oz.