Sorry Kansas, Dorothy was from Dakota

Sep. 18—We've all grown up to believe "The Wizard of Oz" lead character Dorothy Gale (as played by

Minnesota native Judy Garland

) lived on a Kansas farm with her Uncle Henry and Auntie Em.

However, 124 years after the book was published and 85 years after the film was released, evidence has piled up like bricks on that famous yellow road to Oz that Auntie Em's farm was actually in North Dakota and Dorothy was a North Dakota girl. Not only that, but Dorothy is a leaf on a prominent North Dakota family tree.

You can almost hear the shouts of denial from the folks in Kansas who have embraced the

L. Frank Baum story "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz"

as their own since it was first published in 1900. The legendary connection to Kansas only deepened when Hollywood got involved, releasing the blockbuster film in August 1939.

So why would anyone believe North Dakota has anything to do with Dorothy's twister ride to the colorful, poppy-filled, emerald-encrusted land of Oz?

Let's break it down.

Author of "The Wonderful World of Oz," Lyman Frank Baum was born and raised in upstate New York, where he met and married Maud Gage. Baum worked as a theater producer, playwright, and occasional traveling salesman. According to

historian Curt Eriksmoen

, Baum was suffering from a serious heart condition, and his travels were adversely affecting his health.

At the encouragement of Maud's brother, T. Clarkson Gage, and sister, Julia Gage Carpenter, the Baums moved west to the Dakota Territory in 1888, where Julia and T. Clarkson's families had set up homesteads.

The Baums settled in what is now Aberdeen, South Dakota, where they opened a store called "Baum's Bazaar," where Eriksmoen said Baum used a scarecrow to attract customers and was said to wonder, "Wouldn't it be funny if the scarecrow had a brain?"

Later, Baum edited and published a newspaper and dabbled in writing books.

The Baums were especially close to Maud's sister, Julia. Her family had a farm near Edgeley, North Dakota, where Baum's sons would play with the Carpenter children, Harry and Magdalena.

"Baum watched with fascination as the youngsters cavorted about on the open prairie in apparent harmony with the abundant wildlife on the Dakota Plains," Eriksmoen wrote.

The Baums were said to be so taken with Julia's daughter, their niece Magdalena, that they approached Julia and her husband about adopting her. They said no.

While the Baums couldn't adopt their niece, it appears Magdalena was immortalized by her uncle in print, becoming the inspiration for the character of Dorothy in "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz."

Author Elizabeth Letts reached that conclusion in her 2019 book "Finding Dorothy." Letts also believed that the Carpenter home closely mirrored the farm home of Uncle Henry and Aunt Em in the book and film.

Additionally, the Emerald City is believed to have been inspired by an enormous green

mansion

in Aberdeen frequented by Baum.

In Baum's book, Dorothy is described as having "golden hair, a round, rosy face and earnest eyes." (With her long brown curls, Magdalena looked less like Dorothy in the book and more like Judy Garland in the film.)

More importantly, Dorothy was described as "an outspoken young girl with a bold streak."

She is forthright and takes charge, exhibiting no fear when she slaps the Cowardly Lion.

These qualities exhibited by Dorothy might very well have been inherited from Magdalena's real-life grandmother,

Matilda Josyln Gage

, who was an abolitionist and leader in women's suffrage alongside Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

It's amazing to find out that early residents of the Dakotas might have inspired the book that the Library of Congress declared "America's greatest and best-loved homegrown fairy tale" and laid the foundation for the expected 2024 blockbuster film "Wicked," which is out this Thanksgiving.

However, the icing on the cake is that Magdalena, the real-life Dorothy, was the mother of

Jocelyn Birch Burdick, the first female to represent North Dakota in the U.S. House or Senate.

The Burdick name is one of the most famous in North Dakota politics.

Jocelyn, named after her great-grandmother, became a senator upon the death of her husband Quentin Burdick, who served from 1960 until he died in 1992.

His father, Usher Burdick, served North Dakota in Congress and as lieutenant governor. Jocelyn's son

Birch Burdick

(with her late first husband, Kenneth Peterson) was the Cass County state attorney from 1998 to 2022.

(Jocelyn and Peterson also had a daughter, Leslie Burdick, and with Quentin, she had another son, Gage, who died in 1978 from an accident with an electric belt sander.)

Jocelyn died in 2019, but 16 years earlier, she confirmed the long-held rumor to Eriksmoen that her mother, Magdalena, was indeed the inspiration for Dorothy.

"We were very aware of the family connection to L. Frank Baum, 'The Wizard of Oz' and related Oz books," son Birch Burdick said in a recent interview with The Forum. "It was a wonderful story and a very fun movie to watch as a child."

Burdick said he never knew Maud, Julia or Magdalena, as they all died before he was born, but he's always been proud of the strong women in his family, including his mother and his famous great-great-grandmother.

"Matilda Gage's advocacy for women's suffrage was always a point of pride for our family," he said.

So, as you watch "The Wizard of Oz" for the gazillionth time or "Wicked" for the first time, perhaps now you'll picture Dorothy as the matriarch of a North Dakota political dynasty or growing up on a farm in south-central North Dakota, or maybe you'll look at the Emerald City with roots in an Aberdeen mansion.

Or maybe you won't.

But for some of us in the Dakotas, it makes the beloved phrase "There's no place like home" even more magical.

Sorry, Toto, it looks like we're not in Kansas anymore.