From 1929 until 1949, the children’s page of the Mobile Press Register was overseen by a lady calling herself Disa Stone. Her first name came from her childhood mispronunciation of her real name, which was Elsa, while her last name was a translation of her maiden name, Einstein.
Disa had arrived in Mobile in 1929, when her husband, Ralph B. Chandler, was hired to start the newly formed Mobile-Press by a group of the city’s most prominent men. He put up a sizable amount of his savings to form the Mobile Press Publishing Company to compete with the Mobile Register.
The new publication set up shop at 100 N. Jackson Street, the former home of a tire store and the paper was soon known for its contests, cartoons and circulation gimmicks. Disa Stone’s children’s page was one of the gimmicks that worked very well. By August of that year, she was sponsoring story-writing contests for children with a $2 prize.
Local children were encouraged to write letters to “Aunt Disa” and there were paper dolls to be cut out and colored. She formed two very popular clubs for young writers. The youngest joined the Sunshine Club while their older siblings wrote stories for the Nom de Plume Club.
Flying Lemons
The members would look forward to their meetings in the newspaper’s offices where they would hear Disa read stories to them or hear those of other members read aloud. In a 1957 interview author Truman Capote recalled attending those “free Saturday parties where they served Nehi’s and Coca-Colas.”
The reporters in the building were not too happy with the arrangement. If one stepped away from his desk, he was apt to return to a 7-year-old happily banging away on his typewriter. Others complained that, as they furiously typed a story, they would suddenly be surrounded by curious young observers. The worst was when Disa served lemonade. Boys would pull out the lemons and throw them across the room, landing atop desks or the side of a reporter’s head.
By 1932, the Mobile Press had won and the Register sold out. The new paper became the Mobile Press-Register.
Disa became a regular visitor to area grammar schools. On December 16, 1937 The Brewton Standard reported: “Children of the Brewton Elementary School had the pleasure of a visit from Disa Stone. She is an accomplished and highly interesting story teller and visited all the different school rooms and members of the faculty were delighted to have her talk to the pupils here.”
During a particular visit to Fairhope’s elementary school in 1941, the local paper wrote: “Miss Disa Stone, Children’s Editor, held her audience of children and adults spellbound and when the time came to end the story telling hour they clamored for more, more, more!”
Miss Stone encouraged her fans to write stories and besides Truman Capote, Eugene Walter and Winston Groom got their starts as young members of her Nom de Plum Club.
The End of a Column and a Marriage
Disa filed for divorce in 1949, citing “a reasonable apprehension of physical cruelty,” a charge Ralph Chandler denied. Their 37-year marriage came to an end and so did Disa’s column in the Press-Register.
Disa was never one to sit still. She spent her later years visiting elementary schools and volunteering at both the Mobile Infirmary and the base hospital at Brookley Air Force Base. Finally illness slowed her down and she died at the age of 83 in 1974. Following a private service, she was interred in the Chapel of the Pines in Mobile’s Pinecrest Cemetery where a large stained-glass window is dedicated to her ex-husband.
