In 1906 Elias Disney purchased the William Crane Farm on the outskirts of Marceline, Missouri, and the whole family helped maintain it, including young Walt, who was charged with watching his little sister Ruth. Walter and Ruth often slipped away to a cottonwood tree where they found solitude, climbed its branches, and played in the tall grass, and Walt later nicknamed it his 'Dreaming Tree.' Ruth remembered it as part of their unique Midwest childhood. Although Elias rarely encouraged Walt's interest in drawing, his Aunt Margaret recognized his promise and secretly brought him Big Chief Drawing Tablets and sharpened pencils on her visits, allowing him to lie beneath the tree and develop his craft. Walt Disney often credited this place as the birthplace of his creativity. Seeds from the original Dreaming Tree produced three saplings: one was planted in 2003 by Walt's grandson Bradford Disney Lund near the original site, one was planted on Tom Sawyer's Island at Disneyland, and a third was secretly planted somewhere on the Disney Family Farm. Cottonwood trees typically live seventy to one hundred years, but Walt's Dreaming Tree lived more than one hundred twenty years before lightning struck it in 2008, and its remains later blew over in a fierce windstorm on May 28, 2015. The tree was officially registered as a historic tree by American Forests.