Wanda Gág, Part 2

After struggling to raise her siblings and start an art career, Wanda Gág’s life changed almost instantly with the publication of her first children’s book. Part two of her story looks at how her books sustained her financially so she could also make the art she wanted.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Holly Frey?

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argentix. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:35Tracy V. Wilson?

  Whether you're calling the wise women in your life, video calling your girlfriends across the country, or checking in on someone who always knows how to make you smile, staying connected matters. Those small conversations, shared laughs, and quick hellos are what keep relationships strong even when life gets busy. Some of the most life-giving conversations start with just a phone call. That's why AT&T guarantees the network you can rely on, so you can focus on the moments and people that matter most. That's the AT&T Guarantee. AT&T: Connecting Changes Everything. Terms and conditions apply. Visit att.com/guarantee for details.

• 1:10Holly Frey?

  We've all tumbled down an internet rabbit hole trying to self-diagnose, and it leaves us more anxious than informed. Our feeds are full of wellness trends, but how do we know what's real, what's exaggerated, and what's just wrong? Health vs. Hype from the American Medical Association breaks it all down. Emmy-nominated science communicator Trace Dominguez talks to doctors, influencers, and real people trying these trends, not to cancel them, but to understand them. Because when it comes to your health, who you listen to matters. So listen to Health vs. Hype wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:42Tracy V. Wilson?

  The Old Gays are back with Silver Linings, their lovable podcast from iHeart's Ruby Studio in partnership with ViiV Healthcare. Robert, Mick, Bill, and Jessa strut back down memory lane for season two, sharing lessons on life, love, and loss. These are the kind of insights that only come from experience. So tune in to Silver Linings with The Old Gays on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 2:10Holly Frey?

  Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 2:20Holly Frey?

  Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frey.

• 2:23Tracy V. Wilson?

  And I'm Tracy V. Wilson.

• 2:25Holly Frey?

  This is the second part of our two-parter on artist and author Wanda Gog. In part one, we talked about her formative years and her financial struggles as she tried to finish her education, get to art school, and support her mother and six siblings after her father's death when she was just a teenager. We're going to pick up right where we left off. So if you haven't listened to the first episode, you should probably go back and do that, or this won't really make all that much sense or have all that much gravity.

• 2:52Tracy V. Wilson?

  So we mentioned at the end of part one that Wanda had published an essay called "A Hotbed of Feminists." That's kind of where part one ends. And this was published in the periodical The Nation. And while it was obviously about the Gog household, the family's name in this piece was changed to Mur. And it shares the story of growing up in a family of almost all girls. It opens with, quote, "The smell of olive oil and mama in bed, this combination always meant a new baby. In our family, it was one girl after another, which pleased me greatly, for I considered boys not only unesthetic but extremely unnecessary creatures."

• 3:34Tracy V. Wilson?

  It offers insight into the growing up years of the household, noting, quote, "My mother, who was a natural iconoclast, arranged our hair in unusual ways, refused to burden us with starched clothes, and considered shoes and stockings unnecessary in hot weather, Sundays included." It also shares what it was like for Wanda, growing up in a non-religious home, noting that when her classmates asked her what denomination they were, she just told them they were nothing, which led said classmates to tell Wanda her family was unfit for heaven. When she asked her father about it, he tells her, quote, "Nobody knows what will happen to us. Just do the best you know how, and everything will be all right."

• 4:18Holly Frey?

  This essay also shares the details of the really difficult times the family faced immediately after Anton's death. It mentions how the final year of her father's life was stressful because he couldn't work, and that while her mother had been told to take in washing to make ends meet afterwards, quote, "But mother, after the strain of the past year, was too weary and ill to even do her own housework, and I could see that the few dollars I would earn as a clerk in the village store would never solve our problem. Besides, I was needed at home to help with the housework and to take care of the baby. This I did, and by drawing place cards and writing children's stories, which I illustrated,

• 5:01Holly Frey?

  I earned about as much as the store job would have brought. There followed years of struggle for us all."

• 5:07Tracy V. Wilson?

  This essay may or may not have led to the next big accomplishment in her life. Some versions of Wanda Gog's life story say that a woman named Ernestine Evans read this essay and was inspired to reach out to Wanda. Other accounts say that Evans attended an early 1928 exhibition of Gog's work and there became interested in her. It's also possible that she saw the article and then sought out the exhibition. Still, other versions say that Evans was a socialist and recognized Wanda's socialist values and wanted to elevate them. But regardless of how, Evans found Gog and loved her work and was in a position to offer

• 5:49Tracy V. Wilson?

  her a project that would become a significant part of her legacy. Ernestine Evans was an editor at Coward McCann Publishing, and she offered Wanda a contract to create a children's book.

• 6:02Holly Frey?

  Wanda actually had a kids' book that she had been working on since at least 1920. Her partner Earl had even helped her shop it around to publishers, but no one had wanted it. For the next several months after meeting Evans, Wanda worked on the manuscript and illustrations, and it was published before the end of 1928.

• 6:23Holly Frey?

  That book, Millions of Cats, was groundbreaking in a number of ways. The layout of the book was very unique for its time. This was a period when children's book illustrations were not typically laid out in a way that integrated them with the text. There was usually text and story on one page and an illustration on the facing page. But Gog's illustrations flow from page to page in concert with the lettering. And the story features an elderly couple who want a kitty. But when the husband ventures out to find a beautiful cat, he cannot choose just one and ends up leading millions of cats home without thinking about the resources it will take to care for them. They do things along the way, like they all want to drink water.

• 7:08Holly Frey?

  And if each of them has one lap, they empty out a lake and they all want to eat. And if they each eat a blade of grass from a hill, the hill is left barren, et cetera. Spoiler alert. Jump 20 seconds ahead if you don't want to know. The cats all eat each other, except for one skinny straggler who becomes the couple's beloved pet.

• 7:28Tracy V. Wilson?

  One of the most alluring aspects of Gog's book for children, present right here from the beginning in Millions of Cats, is that the stories are actually kind of dark. Obviously, from that synopsis. In this way, they hearken back to the oldest fairy tales and their often ghoulish twists. This is generally attributed to the cultural tone of her family's background and her upbringing. She would have been told stories as a child that came from her parents' bohemian folklore, rather than the more sanitized, hyper-positive and cheery children's stories that had become popular in the US in the early 1900s. This reflected in her own account of her early years, written in 1940.

• 8:12Tracy V. Wilson?

  Quote, "I was born in this country, but often feel as though I had spent my early years in Europe. My father was born in Bohemia, as were my mother's parents. My birthplace, New Ulm, Minnesota, was settled by Middle Europeans, and I grew up in an atmosphere of old world customs and legends, of Bavarian and Bohemian folk songs, of German Marken and Ternveren activities. I spoke no English until I went to school."

• 8:39Holly Frey?

  Millions of Cats is, despite those weird circumstances of the denouement, incredibly charming with its repeated refrain of cats here, cats there, cats and kittens everywhere, hundreds of cats, thousands of cats, millions and billions and trillions of cats. And if you want to hear that read in the best possible way, there is a version of it that's read by James Earl Jones, and I highly recommend it. Wanda was a cat lover herself, although she only had two cats, not millions, one of which was named Snoopy, which is so cute. And she used her own cats as models to create the drawings of the hordes of cats in the books.

• 9:16Tracy V. Wilson?

  We'll talk about the success of Millions of Cats and what the book meant to Wanda in just a moment. But first, we will pause for a sponsor break.

• 9:28Speaker 02

  First thought is like, wow, how are we going to do all this?

• 9:31Tracy V. Wilson?

  Hey, everybody. It's Tracy from Stuff You Missed in History Class. That's Alan Goya, a planning engineer at AT&T. He's talking about Intuit Dome, home of the Los Angeles Clippers, where every seat, screen, phone, and transaction is connected with AT&T fiber and 5G, defining the fan's experience. And Alan's master plan made it all possible.

• 9:51Speaker 02

  It was going to rival anything that was already built. And that takes quite a bit of people and different teams to all be on the same page.

• 9:59Tracy V. Wilson?

  That includes field services manager Drexel Jones. His team made sure it all came together and held up on game day.

• 10:06Speaker 03

  Through what Alan's whole crew designed, we connected the event visitors to the world.

• 10:11Tracy V. Wilson?

  And after years of hard work and collaboration, it was opening night.

• 10:15Speaker 03

  To actually see the whole stadium light up and data is flowing is a beautiful thing.

• 10:19Speaker 02

  What the fans experience is incredible. It gave me a lot of pride.

• 10:23Tracy V. Wilson?

  AT&T, connecting fans to what they love. Connecting changes everything. AT&T. So you're considering getting a home security system, but you want something that fits your space. Well, with ADT Blue, it's easy to customize a system that's right for you and set it up yourself. Just pick the kit and monitoring plan that makes sense for your home. Let's say you're worried about package theft. The ADT Plus app can walk you through setting up a new door Bell camera kit. Once it's installed, ADT Pros can help you keep tabs on it 24/7, or you can manage it yourself from the ADT Plus app. There are no long-term contracts, so you can change your monitoring plan whenever you want. The flexibility doesn't end there. You can add to your system as you need to with things like extra cameras or motion sensors.

• 11:08Tracy V. Wilson?

  Some life decisions are hard, but thanks to ADT Blue, you can DIY trusted ADT home security in a snap. Head to ADT.com/BLU to build your system today. And to hear more about home protection and other grown-up topics, check out new episodes of Grown-Up Stuff on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 11:35Holly Frey?

  A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. Tune in for season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a Ruby Studio production in partnership with Argenx. Hosted by public health and policy expert Dr. Martine Hackett, Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition pushes the conversation within the rare disease community forward. Featuring guests living with MG, CIDP, myositis, SMA, and other rare autoimmune conditions, each episode explores hope, progress, and connection. How does research create new opportunities? How do shared experiences help light the way forward? How do we best show up for each other? Tune

• 12:20Holly Frey?

  in to find out. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 12:33Speaker 04

  That sound? That's the National Squash League. Pro teams, the world's best players, and rallies so fast you'll forget to breathe. Season four is in full swing, and every match streams free on YouTube. Big hits, bigger rivalries, and a front row seat from wherever you are. Watch every match for free on YouTube. Search National Squash League and hit subscribe or follow live updates on Instagram at NSL.Sport.

• 13:07Holly Frey?

  Millions of Cats was hugely popular right out of the gate. It had sold 10,000 copies by January of 1929 and another 5,000 by the end of February. And it just kept going. Its success offered Gog her first taste of real money and lasting financial stability. And that book is still in print almost 100 years later, making it the longest running illustrated book in print in the US. Millions of Cats was an accidental insurance policy for economic uncertainty. The royalties from this and later book projects provided Gog with a dependable income even throughout the Depression.

• 13:47Holly Frey?

  Though the first 38 years of her life had involved a lot of financial difficulty, Millions of Cats really ended all that very quickly, and it also won her a Newberry Award.

• 13:59Tracy V. Wilson?

  Writing for Minnesota History Magazine in 1975, Richard W. Cox noted, quote, "When Wanda took her manuscript of Millions of Cats to publishers in 1927, little did she suspect the significance of this moment to herself or American art." Millions of Cats became the prototype for the picture book, defined as one in which a single artist conceives, writes, illustrates, and supervises the printing of the whole book project. Her success in the children's book field should not have come as a surprise, as her upbringing and later training left her peculiarly prepared for the new genre. Telling, reading, writing, and illustrating stories was a major pastime in the Gog home,

• 14:42Tracy V. Wilson?

  and Wanda proved to be more imaginative here than the other children. Wanda may have been the most imaginative of her siblings, but she was not the only one with artistic talent, and she involved her family in the project. Her brother Howard lettered the book. This was in service to its quality. Howard McCann had to let her do the work and Wanda had rejected it. So then she had her brother do it instead.

• 15:06Holly Frey?

  And he would let her everything she worked on going forward. Millions of cats, as we said, made Wanda money and it also made her famous. She was suddenly put in a position of having to do interviews and have appearances. But the success for her was all about putting her in the more important position of being able to make art for art's sake. Everything in her life was in service to her art and she was adamant that the priority was always going to be art. Howard McCann and other publishers were eager to make deals for more books with her signature style, but her business decisions were always guided by the question of whether it would enable her to make the art she wanted to make.

• 15:49Holly Frey?

  Like basically, how much can I make on this project? And how long can I then just go to my studio and paint the stuff I want to make? Everyone knew Wanda because of millions of cats, but to her, this book was just a tool to sustain her true calling. She also had a lot of offers to illustrate children's books written by other people. And that was always a hard pass with one sort of odd exception.

• 16:13Tracy V. Wilson?

  That was in 1929, when she illustrated Michael Wigglesworth's The Day of Doom. That was not the work of a contemporary author. It was originally published in 1662. Wigglesworth was a Puritan minister and the book describes the day of judgment. It's fairly dark, so it was sort of up Wanda's alley. She took imagery from New England gravestones for the art in the book.

• 16:36Holly Frey?

  Many of Gog's most well-known works have sort of long stories in how they develop over time. For example, jumping forward for a moment, in 1941, she produced a lithograph called Macy's Stairway. And this shows a fairly pedestrian view of an industrial style stairway illustrated in Gog's moody, almost cartoonish way, showing the coiled up emergency fire hose on one of the landings and the mounted handrail along the exterior edge of the stair with a glimpse of the heavier wooden newels and balusters on the other side of the stair. But she started working on this image 11 years earlier. She apparently loved Macy's department store. She often shopped there.

• 17:19Holly Frey?

  And she spent an afternoon there drawing in January of 1929. And then that drawing was refined to a finished drawing and then was made into an etching. She was not very happy with the etching. And then it wasn't until 11 years later that she was ready to revisit this image for its lithographic form, which is essentially a copy of that original finished drawing.

• 17:43Tracy V. Wilson?

  Later in 1929, Gog published her second book with Coward McCann, The Funny Thing. The story is about a man named Bobo, who serves the birds and rabbits and mice, beautiful food that he prepares. Until one day, a very strange creature shows up that, quote, "looked something like a dog and a little like a giraffe. And from the top of its head to the tip of its tail, there was a row of beautiful blue points." This creature is the funny thing. It calls itself an amanol and tells Bobo that it doesn't want his cheeses and puddings because he eats dolls. This distresses Bobo so much because he cannot bear the thought of children losing their dolls in this way.

• 18:26Tracy V. Wilson?

  So he comes up with a way to feed the funny thing something else. So in spite of the stock market crash, people seem to have money to buy the funny thing because it, like millions of cats, was very popular. Gog found herself once again requested for all kinds of appearances and interviews. She also had a book tour during which she visited her family, including her sister Stella, who was at that point married with a child, and she visited her grandparents. These visits were very inspirational for Gog, and she produced a series of lithographs that captured scenes from her family's living spaces, including Grandma's Parlor.

• 19:05Holly Frey?

  One of the hallmarks of Gog's work is this sense that the lines used to create the images are moving or vibrating slightly. And Grandma's Parlor is a perfect example of that. What is essentially a static scene showing part of a Victorian-looking couch, a bureau, and a small side table that sits in front of a window with long curtains feels very much like there's movement in the room. It's a really interesting and unique illusion, particularly because the style of the art is not realistic. So it's kind of like looking into a slightly cartoonish parallel dimension.

• 19:41Tracy V. Wilson?

  During the 1920s, Gog and Earl Humphreys spent a lot of time at a rented place out in the New Jersey country they called Tumbletimbers. The rural life that Wanda loved, which came with few amenities, would not have been possible if Earl had not been willing to handle a lot of the heavy labor aspects of life on a farm. He kept the firewood chopped and ready, made sure they had food, and tended the gardens that Wanda loved so much. His willingness to do the farm's heavy labor made it possible for Wanda to work on her art without having to concern herself with the day-to-day chores. But there was tension in this relationship. Earl cheated on Wanda at the end of the 1920s,

• 20:23Tracy V. Wilson?

  and Wanda reciprocated by also cheating. The pair decided at that point to have what basically sounds like an open relationship, although they called it vacation.

• 20:38Holly Frey?

  Admittedly, the parlance of an open relationship did not exist then.

• 20:42Tracy V. Wilson?

  Right, right.

• 20:43Holly Frey?

  So it makes sense that they're like, we're on vacation from our regular.

• 20:47Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah, yeah, there were no polycules at this point.

• 20:49Holly Frey?

  No.

• 20:50Tracy V. Wilson?

  Uh, Wanda eventually began an affair with Carl Zigrasur of Waya Gallery, as he had long made it clear that he was interested in her. Once they started their sexual relationship, though, it seems to have gone pretty awkwardly. It was an on-again, off-again kind of situation over several years, and it seems like it just sort of wound up feeling kind of forced.

• 21:12Holly Frey?

  Yeah, Wanda also saw other people. Once she was on vacation, uh, she felt very free to flirt and see whoever she wanted. Like, when she went to visit New York, she would often have dates and have brief romantic dalliances with people there. Uh, Wanda and Earl moved away from their home at Tumbletimbers in 1930, and they first moved to a place in West Cornwall, Connecticut, that was owned by a friend. And there she worked on her book Snippy and Snappy, which is about two sibling field mice and a wild adventure that they go on when the ball of yarn that they love gets picked up by a little girl, and they follow that little girl home.

• 21:50Tracy V. Wilson?

  During the years leading up to the 1930s, Wanda had moved a lot. While she spent spring and summer in the country, she was often back in New York for the entire winter, and she was tiring of the inconsistency of just picking up and moving every few months. She wanted a more permanent and stable home and not to be maintaining two residences. She had reached a point in her career that she had the money to start looking for her own property. So in June of 1931, she purchased a farm in Milford, New Jersey. When she purchased it, the house, which sat on a pretty sizable acreage of land, was not updated, but Wanda and Earl renovated it. They added indoor plumbing. Her brother Howard did some of

• 22:34Tracy V. Wilson?

  the renovation work on the house. Wanda also had a separate studio space built on the property away from the house, which she called All Creation. That's a name that eventually came to be used for the entire farm.

• 22:47Holly Frey?

  Once she was settled in a place that felt truly her own, Gog once again found her groove as an artist, and she produced a lot of lithographs and multiple books. Her lithographic work during this period showed an embrace of nature and a move away from representing city life, instead focusing on landscapes and still lifes. She was working at the time on what would become the ABC Bunny for Coward McCann when her artistic interest was drawn elsewhere. She started working on an illustrated version of her favorite book, Henry David Thoreau's Walden. This was initially something she wanted to submit to a book contest, but although she put in a load of work to prepare it, at the last

• 23:32Holly Frey?

  minute, she changed her mind and didn't submit it because she felt that this would only get a limited run if it actually won the contest, and she wanted it to have a wider audience. But oddly, she never seemed to pursue it any further. It was never published. Meanwhile, the Great Depression had caused her income from selling her fine art to slow to just about nothing.

• 23:55Tracy V. Wilson?

  So she went back to the ABC Bunny, which was published in 1933. The ABC Bunny isn't solely an ABC book. It has a narrative structure with each letter representing the next event in the bunny's story. Like her other books, her brother Howard lettered this one, and her sister Flavia also wrote a song for it, which is included in score format at the beginning of the book.

• 24:19Holly Frey?

  Coming up, we'll talk about the last years of Wanda Gog's life, starting with a sabbatical that she took to just paint and draw whatever she liked. We'll talk about how that worked out after we hear from the sponsors that keep the show going.

• 24:36Holly Frey?

  A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. Tune in for season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a Ruby Studio production in partnership with Argenx. Hosted by public health and policy expert Dr. Martine Hackett, Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition pushes the conversation within the rare disease community forward. Featuring guests living with MG, CIDP, myositis, SMA, and other rare autoimmune conditions, each episode explores hope, progress, and connection. How does research create new opportunities? How do shared experiences help light the way forward? How do we best show up for each other?

• 25:21Holly Frey?

  Tune in to find out. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 25:34Speaker 04

  That sound? That's the National Squash League. Pro teams, the world's best players, in rallies so fast you'll forget to breathe. Season four is in full swing, and every match streams free on YouTube. Big hits, bigger rivalries, and a front row seat from wherever you are. Watch every match for free on YouTube. Search National Squash League and hit subscribe or follow live updates on Instagram at NSL.Sport.

• 26:02Speaker 05

  This stress check, aka friendly reminder that your hobbies matter, is brought to you by State Farm, because you deserve to lose yourself in the stuff that brings you joy. Here's mine: painting my tabletop battle miniatures. Yeah, seriously. After a long day, I grab a brush, pop in some music, and just get into it. And there's no wrong way to do it. It helps me clear my head, slow down, and just breathe. But it works. Big stress, mini warriors, total reset. No pressure, just paint, creativity, and a little reminder of what makes me happy. Some people bake, some people garden. Me, I paint warriors with interesting tech. And guess what? It works. You don't have to be good at your hobby. You just have to enjoy it.

• 26:47Speaker 05

  So carve out that time, tune out the noise, and do something that's just for you. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

• 26:55Speaker 06

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 27:31Holly Frey?

  After the publication of The ABC Bunny, Gog felt like she had earned some time to once again focus solely on her own art. But once she had that time, she was not feeling especially inspired. So she eventually went back to working on another book that became Gone is Gone, or The Story of a Man Who Wanted to Do Housework. And in this story, a man named Fritzl is convinced that he works harder in the fields than his wife, Lisi, works taking care of the house and the animals and the baby. So the pair decide to switch places for a day. Some rather frightening things happen in this book. We've already mentioned that Wanda Gog's art style and her book style is a little dark.

• 28:12Holly Frey?

  Fritzl almost kills the family's cow by accident, for example. And at the end of the day, he begs his wife to please take back the housework so he can go back to the fields. Lisi did great in the fields, by the way. Throughout these early years at All Creation, when she was working initially on Sabbatical and then on this book, Gog's diaries show a new maturity, where she's very reflective about her work and less prone to the sweeping generalizations about artistic gifts that she made in her younger years. She evolved her view of the artist's job as including the need to cultivate their own work and be judicious about creative choices instead of only following every muse that pops up.

• 28:55Tracy V. Wilson?

  Her next two book projects were adaptations. She published her version of Grimm's Fairy Tales, Tales from Grimm, which she rewrote and illustrated in 1936. And in 1938, she published Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. That was the year after Walt Disney released his film version of Snow White, and the Gog version serves as sort of a counter to it, an alternative version. In Gog's telling of the story, the queen turns literally green with envy when the mirror tells her that Snow White is more beautiful. And when the prince finds Snow White in an eternal slumber in a casket in the woods, he does not kiss her back to life. He decides to carry the princess back to the castle, and she's jostled on the journey

• 29:38Tracy V. Wilson?

  with a piece of apple lodged in her throat being dislodged. That leads to her awakening.

• 29:44Holly Frey?

  There are interpretations of Wanda Gog's literature for children that see it as an expression of Wanda's larger worldview. Richard Cox, once again writing for Minnesota History in 1975, notes, quote, "The cat battle in millions of cats may reflect her revulsion against the destruction caused by World War I. Peasants abound in nearly all her stories, and Wanda's regard for the peasant class was almost legendary. Her seven dwarfs are frugal, hardworking, sensible men, not Disney's famous, likable comic fools who anxiously stumble around the forest cottage awaiting Snow White's next kiss. Wanda spoke of peasants in the sense of all honest workers trying to maintain their integrity

• 30:28Holly Frey?

  amidst the pressures of the industrial Western world. The picture book proved to be a good way for her to serve humanity and to vindicate herself from earlier accusations of elitism and being out of touch with ordinary human beings. She also revealed in her children's books the strength and dignity of women. Like Wanda herself, females in her books assert their opinions and make decisions. They suffer the same sins of pride, vanity, and greed as men." What is artwork in these books over which she had complete editorial control is whimsical, but it's not simplistic. Gog refused to apply lesser standards to her work for children's picture books than she would to any fine art lithograph she made.

• 31:14Tracy V. Wilson?

  Coward McCann remained eager to leverage Gog's popularity and had been suggesting that she write about her unconventional upbringing. This led her to revisit her journals from her early life. And in 1940, Gog published the diaries she had kept from the ages of 15 to 23. Basically, the period of time between when her father died and when her mother died. She wrote in the opening to it, quote, "I had often wondered how I would feel upon rereading them and had even speculated about it in my diary at times. I found that I was able to regard my youthful outpourings, while with a natural interest and hence not complete detachment, still with considerable objectivity.

• 31:56Tracy V. Wilson?

  True, all the usual juvenilities were still there, the slang and silliness, the girlish gush and crush, the introspection, the agonizing over love, the youthful arrogance and turidity. But recognizing these traits as typical of the various age groups of which I was successively apart, I saw myself as only one of many going through the normal phases of adolescence."

• 32:20Holly Frey?

  Yeah, people were very interested in this book, of course. I will say she also did edit those diary entries a good bit, including the name change that we mentioned earlier in talking about her. Through the years, Wanda and Earl had stayed together, although they had continued to have their vacation periods where they were free to see other people, and they definitely did. And then on August 27th, 1943, they married rather suddenly. And this sounds pretty romantic, and there may have been an element of romance to it, but this move was actually catalyzed by a work issue for Earl. So because it was wartime, Humphreys was working in a war job.

• 33:02Holly Frey?

  He was working in a machine shop and he had organized the workers there into a union. The shop managers threatened to fire Earl, but their reason had nothing to do with his unionization, even though it really did. The reason that they gave was that he was living in sin with a woman who was not his wife. So Wanda and Earl fixed that lickety-split, and Wanda became a bride at the age of 50.

• 33:28Tracy V. Wilson?

  Wanda was having some health issues at this point. She'd gone to various doctors, and they'd all told her that she just needed rest. Problem that still exists today when women go to the doctor. Wanda felt she was having menopause-related problems, but the doctors told her she was too young for that. In some cases, they were reportedly shocked when she told them she was almost 50. She was very petite and thin for her whole life, and a lot of times that made her seem a lot younger than she really was. She was mistaken for a teenager well into her adult life, but none of that addressed why she felt terrible a lot of the time.

• 34:06Holly Frey?

  Yeah, there are some references in her diary where you can tell she's talking about not feeling great, and it reads as being almost tentative to actually write down what she's experiencing because it seems a little scary.

• 34:20Tracy V. Wilson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 34:20Holly Frey?

  Um, by 1944, though, Wanda was often complaining of shortness of breath, and it was bad enough that she could not work on her art, which for her was like not being able to breathe. And then just day-to-day things like brushing her teeth became simply too much for her. At this point, she had started staying exclusively in an apartment that she had gotten in New York because the winters at All Creation were too cold, and traveling between the two was too arduous. Finally, in February of 1945, she was admitted to Doctor's Hospital for exploratory surgery, and the resulting news was very bad. Wanda

• 35:00Holly Frey?

  had lung cancer and had months to live. This news was not given to Wanda but to Earl, and Earl and Wanda's brother Howard discussed the matter and decided not to tell Wanda or her sisters.

• 35:14Tracy V. Wilson?

  This is- How it was often handled at the time. I'm not excusing it, but that's like how it was often handled at the time.

• 35:22Holly Frey?

  Yes.

• 35:23Tracy V. Wilson?

  Wanda still had treatments and her diary entries indicate that she figured out from those treatments that she must have had one or more malignant growths. And she knew she was only getting worse. Earl did everything he could to make Wanda's life as comfortable as possible. They spent time in Milford when she felt well enough and he drove her to Florida for a vacation in the spring of 1945. After they got back to New York and then to New Jersey, she oversaw the planting of her annual vegetable garden and worked on another project, More Tales From Grim for Coward McCann. In late June of 1945, Wanda rapidly declined and was admitted to Doctor's Hospital once again. She died there on June 27.

• 36:07Holly Frey?

  Today, you can visit the new Olm House designed by Anton Gog that Wanda and her siblings grew up in, if you happen to be visiting Minnesota. It is open regular hours, June to October, and then by appointment throughout the rest of the year. So if that's something you want to do, highly recommend you check out their website so that you get all the details before you show up and find out maybe you couldn't go in. But that is Wanda Gog. I have so much behind the scenes stuff to talk about for her. And in the meantime, I have a little bit of listener mail. This is a listener mail about one of my favorite topics of recent past, spite houses. This is from our listener Lily who writes, hello lovely ladies. Your podcast has been one of my favorites for years.

• 36:51Holly Frey?

  So firstly, thank you for all your good work and wonderful and interesting content. I got especially excited about your episode on spite houses, which is just a hilarious concept to me. In December 2022 to March 2023, I had the opportunity to work and live in Lebanon. And towards the end of my time there, I learned about Albassa, translated to English, the grudge. This is the thinnest building in Beirut and was the result of feuding brothers arguing about how to share the property their father had left them. I was so fortunate to have a friend in Beirut who took me there so I could see The building and the stunningly beautiful view that the one brother wanted to block from the other. Looking forward to hear about hopefully more spite houses around

• 37:34Holly Frey?

  the world and all other things you come up with. I've attached photos I took of the grudge and also a few of my little furball Wilma Waffle. She's a 10 year old cuddly and very gracious lady from a little island on the Arctic Circle, right off the coast of Norway, Trenna, and she lives to lay on the floor for a big belly rub. She also loves smelly shoes and bird watching. You know, I had a cat that was very obsessed with smelly shoes and we used to discuss that he looked like he was huffing when he got in there. She is adorable, by the way. I want to rub that tummy so much. And I love the grudge. I mean, I don't love it, but I love it. It's one that did come up when I was looking at spite houses online, but it's it's a little newer and also I didn't have a ton of

• 38:18Holly Frey?

  info on it. But it is a very, very narrow house that has been built to block a beautiful view from another house, because that's a number of spite houses come about that way. I'm just laughing about spite houses now. If you would like to write to us about spite houses, or kitties, or wanda gog, or children's literature, or any of the other many, many things, you can do that at [email protected]. If you have not subscribed to the show and you would like to, I promise you, that is the easiest thing you will maybe do today. You can do that on the iHeartRadio app or anywhere you listen to your favorite podcasts.

• 39:03Tracy V. Wilson?

  Stuff You Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 39:17Holly Frey?

  A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenx. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 39:48Tracy V. Wilson?

  You ever show up late to the game and your friends already saved your seat, your drink, even a plate? That's looking out. That's having your back. And that's exactly what AT&T does with the AT&T Guarantee. They know staying connected matters, so they actually guarantee a network that comes through when it counts. AT&T has connectivity you can depend on, or they'll proactively make it right. Just like that friend who takes care of things before you even ask. AT&T: Connecting changes everything. Terms and conditions apply. Visit att.com/guarantee for details.

• 40:22Speaker 07

  Wait, I came in for two things. How is this $47? All right, we're gonna need a plan here.

• 40:30Speaker 08

  Just start simple with Bank of America Advantage Safe Balance Banking. No overdraft item fees, no monthly maintenance fee if you're under 25.

• 40:38Speaker 07

  Oh, that's actually really simple.

• 40:41Speaker 08

  Safe Balance Banking: One Less Thing to Figure Out. Learn more at bofa.com/simplbanking. Terms and conditions apply. Bank of America and a member FDIC.

• 40:54Speaker 04

  That sound? That's pro squash. Some of the fastest rallies in sport played inches from the crowd. The National Squash League is back in full swing for season four. The sport is heading to the 2028 Olympics for the first time, and you can see it up close right now in a city near you. Watch every match for free on YouTube. Search National Squash League and hit Subscribe or follow live updates on Instagram at NSL.Sport.

• 41:21Speaker 08

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.