Visiting Forest Lawn

Eric Shanower at L. Frank Baum's grave.

A few days ago I mentioned that last Sunday, Eric Shanower and I drove up to Los Angeles to see a double feature of MGM's 1939 Wizard of Oz and Disney's 1985 Return to Oz. On the way we stopped in Glendale to visit the grave of L. Frank Baum, author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and many other books, at Forest Lawn Memorial Park.

The main stone marks the graves of L. Frank and his wife Maud. But all four of their sons and their sons' wives and a few of the grandchildren are buried there, too, each marked by a flat headstone.

I'd seen photographs of the Baum headstone before, but had never seen the back, which has only the name "Baum" on it. I decided to take a photograph of it, and all of a sudden the sunlight broke through the trees and my iPhone turned the shafts of light a pretty lilac color. It seemed very Ozzy. It was a nice visit with the original Royal Historian of Oz.

If you'd like to see the grave on a visit to Forest Lawn, it's in section G. Obtain a map of the grounds from the kiosk at the entrance to find your way to section G. The Baum stone is visible from the roadway, just east of the Great Mausoleum.