Early in her career, Dodd applied for a passport in preparation for a trip to Europe, and was reported as saying she only knew she was born in Iowa. Whether an attempted bit of publicity, she wound up with plenty in her home state. Dorothy Anne Dodd had many relatives who still lived in and around Baxter when Claire's memory lapse was reported in the Register & Tribune's Iowa News Service on April 29, 1935, and folks there were in an uproar. ``She isn't worthy of her birthplace'' was the title of one editorial in a local paper the next day, reasoning ``No native-born Baxterian has any business forgetting the name of his birthplace''.
Anne Dodd
Claire