She Missed Glory

Perhaps the most puzzling credit on a Warner Bros. cartoon is the one you see to the left, where Leadora Congdon is revealed to be responsible for the streamlined designs in the 1936 short Page Miss Glory. She was never credited in any other cartoon, anywhere. Her name isn’t bandied about by historians or retired staffers at any cartoon studio. She’s a complete mystery.

Well, maybe not.

A few diehard diggers have found bits and pieces over the years. Some time ago on this blog, we quoted Leon Schlesinger in a syndicated story in the Baltimore Sun of June 20, 1937 about the cartoon.

Not long ago, we decided to do something definitely different. A girl from Chicago showed me some ultra-modernistic sets she had designed which she thought could be used as backgrounds for a sophisticated cartoon. In order to show off the sets, we had to use human characters and have the camera shoot the sort of angles Busby Berkeley made famous. The idea was novel and the result original, but somehow it was not so funny as if animals, fowls or insects had been used.

So with this limited information about Chicago in hand leave us, like Snooper and Blabber, set off a detec-a-tive prowl through history.

One thing one quickly learns in research is not everything out there is altogether accurate. Names are misspelled. Dates vary. But we eventually find a clue.

To the right is a little clipping from the Chicago Tribune of March 15, 1919. It’s one of a handful of brief reports on the teenaged Leadora, all of them involving dancing of some kind. With a check of census records we discover that Leah Congdon is listed as living with father Albert B. mother Emma. Her father is recorded a salesman for a canned food company. But we have to go to Canada for our next clue. It seems that Leadora’s father ended up in Winnipeg, Manitoba for a period of World War One. Witness the document below.



The immigration document states that Leadora was living in Chicago (with relatives, perhaps). However, she did spend some time in Canada, as you can see in the 1921 Canadian Census for Chatham, Ontario, which is something like 50-some-odd miles from the U.S. border with Detroit. Movement across the Canada/U.S. border was not difficult back then, even to live or work.



The immigration document above reveals that Leadora was born in Syracuse, New York. So what does a virtual trip to Syracuse tell us? Well, the Post-Standard happened to publish an obituary in its November 1, 1965 edition, despite the fact Congdon had not lived there for years and years.

Mrs. Osborn Dies at Home
Mrs. Leah Dora Congdon Osborn of Forest Lake, Ill., a native Syracusan who had done design work for Walt Disney, died unexpectedly at her home at Forest Lake, a Chicago suburb. She was in her 60s. Born in Syracuse, she and her family moved from here while she was in their early years. Her husband, Tech Osborn, who died two years ago, was in the printing business. He is credited with being the inventor of the process of printing color designs on oil paper. Surviving are a step-son, Tech Osborn of Forest Lake; her father, Albert B. Congdon of West Palm Beach, Fla.; and two aunts, Mrs. Fred R. Lear of Syracuse and an aunt in Florida. Services will be 2 p.m. Wednesday at Forest Lake, with burial in the same community.

Walt Disney? She worked for Walt Disney? Maybe. Maybe not. It’s altogether possible the terms “cartoons” and “Disney” were used interchangeably; we’ve run into other newspaper stories where the writer gets studios mixed up. The Chicago Tribune has a brief funeral announcement for her on the same date but doesn’t reveal exactly when she passed away.

Unfortunately, there’s nothing in this cursory detective job to indicate how she knew or met Leon Schlesinger or convinced him to use the lovely streamlined art in one of his cartoons. However, we are able to ascertain what she was doing later in life. That’s again thanks to an obituary. The Post-Herald stated Leadora’s husband (nicknamed Tek, also the name of their son) died in 1963. Sure enough, the Tribune reported on December 18, 1963:

Arthur C. Osborn
Funeral services for Arthur C. Osborn, 66, of Forest drive, Forest Lake, Lake county, who died Monday in his home, will be held at 11 a.m. today in the chapel at 53 S. Old Rand rd., Lake Zurich. He and his widow, Leadora, operated Lea-Tek studios, doing commercial photographic work, from their home. He retired in 1960 as an employe of U.S. Printing and Lithographic company in Chicago, and in 1939 as an army major. Besides his widow, he is survived by a daughter, Mrs. Susan Keagy; a son, Ted [sic]; and three grandchildren.

The 1940 U.S. Census for Chicago gives Leadora Osborn’s occupation as “artist, advertising.” The Tribune also published a story in 1960 announcing a one-woman art exhibit of her’s. She and Osborn married in 1937; she had been married to Robert O’Hair, Jr. in 1928. The 1930 Census lists her occupation as “artist, commercial art co.” Again, this is for Chicago. I have found no evidence of her living in Los Angeles under any of her surnames.

No, this is not an attempt at a complete biography. It’s merely a few notes to give us a bit more information than we knew about Miss Congdon before.

I’ve always liked Page Miss Glory, though director Tex Avery baldly told historian Joe Adamson: “Forget it. It was lousy.” The designs and layouts in the dream sequence are very good and Avery finds room for some funny gags. Read a post about the cartoon here and young Steven Hartley’s opinions back when he was a 15-year-old blogger here