Chesterton Oz Fest’s ‘first lady’ still greeting fans
From The Farm
Several months ago I wrote a column that featured a recipe from Jerry Maren, who starred as the Lollipop Guild Munchkin in the 1939 film classic “The Wizard of Oz.”
Reader Carla Sellers, of South Bend, who had served as one of the event organizers for the annual Wizard of Oz Festival in Chesterton before it disbanded in 2012, contacted me to ask about Mary Ellen St. Aubin, another of the favorite “little people,” who, like Maren, would travel to Northwest Indiana each year to greet fans.
St. Aubin traditionally greeted her Chesterton fans by saying she was “a Munchkin by marriage,” since she did not appear in the film, but her husband, Pernell Elmer St. Aubin, was in the movie playing a Munchkin soldier. He died at age 64 in 1987 and only attended a few of the first Chesterton festivals, while she continued to attend faithfully almost every year.
It’s with a big smile that I report Mary Ellen St. Aubin is still attending Wizard of Oz festivals and events around the country, and on Sept. 21, she will celebrate her 98th birthday. Last month, she attended the Michigan Wizard of Oz Festival in Ionia, Mich., on June 8 and 9 and was honored with a plaque for her support and attendance at the annual gathering.
St. Aubin has a special place in the hearts of Northwest Indiana Wizard of Oz Festival fans because she is credited with helping launch the first festival.
Festival founder Jean Nelson, who died in 2016, is the woman who gathered Munchkins from around the country — including the St. Aubins — to attend the annual Wizard of Oz Festival in Chesterton.
Nelson and her husband, Robert, were the owners of the Yellow Brick Road Gift Shop and Museum in Chesterton, which inspired her to launch a festival in 1981 dedicated to the MGM film to help promote the business.
She wanted to draw attention to the event, which started out small in the yard of her home — a cottagelike building where the Yellow Brick Road Gift Shop and Museum was housed. Being from Chicago, Nelson dreamed up an idea to secure a “special celebrity guest” with Chicago local roots for the first festival
She knew Mary Ellen and Parnell St. Aubin and their “Oz” connection and that they owned and operated a bar on Chicago’s South Side called The Midget Club, which was open from 1948 to 1982. She asked them to attend her new festival event. What began as “an autograph party,” drawing large crowds, prompted her to expand it each year, adding a parade, costume character contests, Auntie Em pie-baking competitions and other activities.
The festival achieved worldwide attention for more than three decades, with an annual operating budget of more than $100,000 during its peak years in the 1990s and attracting more than 90,000 attendees each year. Nelson networked with Mary Ellen St. Aubin and her other Munchkin friends and soon had as many as 15 people who had played Munchkins in the original film attending as honored guests. Nelson affectionately dubbed Mary Ellen St. Aurbin as the “first lady of the Chesterton Wizard of Oz Festival” and invited her to return every year.
The rather unique “small pub” that Mary Ellen and Parnell St. Aubin owned in Chicago included some memorabilia nods to “The Wizard of Oz” and clever “short bar stools” and was featured in Mike Royko’s famed syndicated column.
In addition to their later-in-life barkeep duties, Mary Ellen and Parnell St. Aubin enjoyed careers with Hollywood highlights.
Parnell St. Aubin began entertaining audiences at the age of 10 when he was featured in a stage show at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. After appearing in “The Wizard of Oz,” he played Scrubby the Pig on a children’s show that aired locally in Chicago in the days of early television programming.
Mary Ellen St. Aubin starred opposite child star Margaret O’Brien and the legendary Lionel Barrymore in the 1946 film “Three Wise Fools.”
The couple first met at Parnell St. Aubin’s Chicago bar, and the two were married in 1948, retiring from show business to run the bar.
Given their pub history, it is perfectly appropriate that today’s recipe from Mary Ellen St. Aubin’s kitchen file is for her “Wickedly Delicious Bourbon Balls.”
Philip Potempa has published three cookbooks and is the director of marketing at Theatre at the Center. Mail questions to From the Farm, P.O. Box 68, San Pierre, IN 46374.