Bob Welbaum
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If you missed them, Part One and Part Two are still available

After the tour of Ward’s collections, we followed him back to the house.

The only room we really saw was a very open living room-type area, split down the middle by a couch. On the door side were several chairs and the couch surrounding a circular coffee table. Immediately behind this were patio doors opening onto a patio and the pool. We also noticed a lot of windows on the front of the house.

The coffee table was piled with magazines: gardening, Consumer Reports, Time, modeling; it was almost like a doctor’s waiting room. There was also a yellow note pad with a pen next to it.

Our attention was drawn to a portrait of his wife Betty. It was at least full-size with a three-dimensional quality. She was in her gardening clothes, holding a watering can in one hand and a potted plant in the other. Roots were sticking out of the bottom of the pot, and dirt was trickling down, making a small pile at her feet. Of course Ward had painted it himself on an old door as a gift to her (possibly for their anniversary). They had planned to use it to block what used to be a doorway. Then someone told him the paint would fade, so he put it in a more sheltered location in the living room.

During our visit we were able to meet Betty. An Ink & Paint veteran, she interrupted her gardening chores long enough to say hello.

On the shelf above the television was a mint-looking set of Seiberling rubber Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs figurines. And directly on top of the TV were figures of the TV family “The Simpsons.�? At one point Ward told us he loved The Simpsons — this was his favorite TV show, well written and very creative. He also liked the Beatles’ animated movie Yellow Submarine and enjoyed reading the “Calvin and Hobbes�? comic strip. We took away the impression Ward would have liked to have done things like that; more experimental, more creative work if maybe he had had a little more freedom at Disney. In fact, he said some considered him to be unfaithful, even disloyal to the “Disney way�? because he was interested in experimenting into more contemporary animation.

All throughout our visit we were curious as to what topics of conversation would be allowed. I had been told Ward was no longer anxious to talk about Disney. The prediction was the subject of our visit would be about trains and little else. In fact, shortly after our arrival Ward did mention that all his Disney memorabilia were packed away.

But he did say (I believe it was during my original phone call) he would talk about Disney with us. His reputation for no longer discussing Disney came from dealing with the collectors’ clubs. They were businesses and he had come to feel used by them. (Today I assume he was referring to The Mouse Club, which was a business, and which I never joined. The NFFC is nonprofit and member-run.)

We were mesmerized by some of the names Ward kept dropping. One in particular was Walt Kelly, creator of the comic strip “Pogo.�? Kelly worked with him, particularly for the crows in Dumbo. He mentioned Kelly had a sketch book — every time something funny happened, Kelly would make a sketch of it and they would make up jokes to match.