Frank Joslyn Baum - To Please A Child and Oz Club Presidency

To Please A Child and Oz Club Presidency

Baum married Margaret Elizabeth Ligon Turner on 19 August 1940. After Maud died in 1953, he was admitted back into The Baum Trust, but he had gained only the tolerance, and not the faith of his family. From time to time he would write articles about his father's work, the most notable being "The Oz Film Co.", which appeared in the August–September 1956 Films in Review, which appeared when the films had been generally forgotten. When Justin G. Schiller founded the International Wizard of Oz Club, Baum was appointed its first president, and served in that position until his death. He had been friendly with the founding members, who were unaware of his family conflicts. He had been working in near-isolation on a biography of his father, eventually titled To Please a Child, derived from an inscription L. Frank Baum wrote in his sister Mary Louise's copy of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, after a suggestion by Fred M. Meyer, the club secretary. His brother Robert was the only member of his family to provide any information. Russell P. MacFall became his collaborator, but he had difficulty speaking with Baum's family. They were willing to discuss family matters only after Baum had died. Reilly and Lee had imposed a 1961 deadline, and the book that appeared is filled with Frank Joslyn Baum's mythologizing about his father, claiming so far as that L. Frank Baum had had a heart attack at age 12 and had marched in a torchlight parade in support of William Jennings Bryan's presidential candicacy, both of which were fabrications.

Baum died from a heart attack on 2 December 1958.