Finding Dorothy

by Elizabeth Letts

Scott County Library hardcover 340 pages plus afterword, etc.

Published: 2019

Genre: historical fiction

Told from the perspective of Maud Baum (wife of L. Frank Baum), the story bounces between 1939 when The Wizard of Oz is being filmed to the late 1800s when she is growing up, meeting the man she would marry, etc. This is one of those books that had me Googling lots of info! What is true and what is fiction? I now want to read about a dozen more books on everything from Judy Garland to Matilda Gage!

Page 10 - "It pained Maud terribly to think that Frank could be forgotten, and yet, she wasn't entirely surprised. Now, almost twenty years after her husband's death, many people didn't recognize his name, but was there anyone, big or small, who didn't know Dorothy and the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Lion?"

This made me think about mortality and the value of living for Eternal rewards instead of earthly ones. I wonder what my grandmas were little as little girls and as young moms. Part of the reason I value stories is because of this sense that life is fleeting. I sure do miss being able to talk to my mom!

Page 17 - ". . . annoyed that her voice had emerged like a mouse's soft squeak. She cleared her throat. She had never had trouble speaking her mind - but the devil of old age was that sometimes she sounded frail when she didn't feel like it in the least."

I'm not there yet (age-wise, sounding frail), but I know that feeling of my outer expression not matching my inner feeling. It's frustrating, especially if you're trying to communicate something important to you!

Page 22 - "Maud clutched the marble in her sweaty palm, her rawhide marble pouch banging against her wrist as she ran. Now, as always, she longed for the pockets that all the boys had."

Yes! Even nowadays, it's frustrating to have clothes without pockets! If they've been given to me, I just try to make the best of it. (I love free clothing!) But when I'm shopping, pockets are a must-have.

Page 42 - "If she were to have any hope at love, she'd have to find a man who could love her as she was, even though there seemed little likelihood that such a man existed."

Poor Maud! I'm so glad she and L. Frank found one another.

Page 168 - "But Maud had learned some bitter lessons in her life - and perhaps one of the hardest was that you can't always rescue people, no matter how much you want to."

Ooh . . . I struggle with this one! I want so very much to help people, but I can't live their lives FOR them . . . at some point, you have to have boundaries and let them know you love them but they need to be responsible for their own lives.

Page 216 - "'With all of these oohs and ahs, I think we must christen it the Land of Ahs,' Frank said, clearly pleased at the boys' reaction."

I don't know if this is actually how he came up with the Land of Oz, but it makes for a super cool detail in this story!

Page 239 - I'm not going to quote it here, but it made my heart happy when they were living in "Dakota" and the traveling baseball team went to Webster. My dear friend Kathy lives in Webster, South Dakota!!!

Page 251 - "Although Maud loved Frank dearly, right now she wanted to steal a few more quiet moments before heading up to bed, and she hoped that more conversation could wait until the morning. She had never expected to miss those long, peaceful hours she had once spent in the Sage Library . . . "

I can relate to this! Especially when my children were young and I never seemed to have alone time. 

Page 259 has another one of those mentions that tickled my happy bone. It talks about going to the town of LaMoure. I've looked that one up and thought about visiting, since I married a LaMoore and we have a lot of family history in the Dakotas.

Page 285 - "She remembered Matilda telling her not to run away and marry an actor, but it was only now that Maud really understood: the part of Frank that made him an actor was the part that she had fallen in love with, but it was also the part that made him so ill-suited for the things of this world."

Compatibility and marriage are not easy, but they are important! Again, I wondered how much was fact and how much was fiction. Matilda Gage was a suffragist. Maud Gage only went to Cornell one year. Maud and L. Frank Baum lived in "Dakota" for a while. They had four sons. I loved the love story between Maud and L. Frank and spent time online looking for more info!

Page 345 - in the afterword, the author recommends some books that I want to note here (but not request from the library yet! I'm trying to catch up on all my reading!).

Finding Oz: How L. Frank Baum Discovered the Great American Story by Evan I. Schwartz

The Real Wizard of Oz: The Life and Times of L. Frank Baum by Rebecca Loncraine

L. Frank Baum: Creator of Oz by Katharine M. Rogers

Baum's Road to Oz, edited by Nancy Tystad Koupal

Page 347 - she recommends a book about the making of the movie. This interests me even more than the ones about Baum, but I'm still not going to request it yet.

The Making of the Wizard of Oz by Aljean Harmetz