My Link to Johnny Gruelle - Creator of Raggedy Ann

My Link to Johnny Gruelle - Creator of Raggedy Ann

Johnny Gruelle was a political cartoonist when my mother and father first met him and his wife, Myrtle, at the dinner parties they attended in the Norwalk and New Canaan area of southern Connecticut back in the 1920s. My father, in his late twenties, was manager of a large, very modern farm, featuring purebred, prizewinning Jersey cows. My parents were part of a group of friends that included the Gruelles and businessmen in the area. In those days of prohibition, the group partied together at each other’s homes where they drank cocktails and dined. Most of the wives, partook very little of any alcoholic drinks.

The Gruelles once had a little daughter, Marcella, who fell victim to a wasting disease. Before she died, Johnny made up stories to tell her and that’s the way the Raggedy Ann and Andy stories began. I think it was after she died that Johnny first published the stories that became classics in children’s literature, and made contributions to the toy industry

In 1928, my father bought a farm that had at one time been part of circus-owner P.T. Barnum’s property in Bethel Connecticut about 40 miles to the north. Because automobiles and their tires were very unreliable in those days only 20 years after they became commonplace this was a long drive for the close friendships to continue. But occasionally my parents still went to the dinner parties in Norwalk and New Canaan, and the friends would drive up to visit us on our farm on Sundays. It was the custom of the times to take long Sunday drives to drop in on friends. We were always delighted to see them, and they were always treated to one of my mother’s wonderful roast beef or roast chicken dinners. I can still remember the mmms and aaahs as visitors entered the house just before dinner-time in the middle of the day, and smelled the wonderful odors of the roast meat and the freshly baked, bread, cakes and pies, that Mother had prepared for the family’s Sunday dinner. In his books Johnny makes numerous references to the nice odors of cooking, and I wonder now if he was remembering the smells from my mother’s kitchen.

After dinner everyone would retire to the parlor where we had an old Baldwin upright piano. My sister, Jane, and I were expected to provide entertainment. Jane would play a very competent rendition of "Moonlight Sonata" on the piano, and I would follow up by singing about 27 verses of "Little Joe the Wrangler" as I accompanied myself on a ukulele. We always got a polite round of applause, but it was sure to get the visitors stirring and on their way home when we paused.

Johnny and Myrtle Gruelle visited us several times between 1931 and 1936. From time to time he would publish a new children’s book, and mother would buy a copy for him to autograph. I think it was when the Gruelles moved to Miami Beach that Johnny sent me an autographed copy of "Johnny Mouse and the Wishing Stick". He had drawn a picture just for me in the frontispiece of Johnny Mouse picking a hot dog off a weenie bush and putting it on one of the buns that grew like mushrooms at his feet. I believe this picture appeared only in the first edition. We visited the Gruelles at their Miami Beach home later when I was 15 years old.

The sketches have deteriorated over the 75 years since they were created, but Rich Borstadt of the Mountain Empire Historical Society has digitally conserved them so that marketable copies can be made. Since they were done expressly for my sister Jane and me, the general public has never seen them before. My granddaughter plans to offer copies for sale on e-bay, and we have a copyright on these rare and long lost sketches.

When I became a volunteer at the Gaskill Brothers Stone Store Museum 14 years ago, I discovered more about the Gruelle family in a book about the history of Alpine, California 30 miles from where I now live. It mentioned notable people who lived there at the time the book was published in 1971. Among them I found reference to Justin Gruelle, a younger brother of Johnny, who was also an artist. In fact he illustrated some of Johnny’s later children’s books as well as a book called "The Mother Goose Parade".

Johnny and Justin Gruelle were sons of Richard Gruelle of Indianapolis, who was a self-taught artist, and part of the "famous four" original Hoosier artists. Later Richard Gruelle moved to the Silvermine area of New Canaan, where he became a leader in the art group there, wrote articles on philosophy and art, and where later my parents and my sister Jane and I were lucky enough to meet and become friends with his son Johnny Gruelle.

Copyright January 2007 Ruth Stevenson MacGill