Dorothy Gale relative. (It is also possible that "Aunt" and "Uncle" are affectionate terms of a foster family and that Dorothy is not related to either of them, although Zeb in "Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz" claims to be Dorothy's second cousin, related through Aunt Em. Little mention is made of what happened to Dorothy's birth parents, other than a passing reference to her mother being dead.) Along with her small black dog, Toto, Dorothy is swept away by a tornado to the Land of Oz and, much like Alice of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", they enter an alternative world filled
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz for the fact that the West was still undeveloped at the time. The Munchkins Dorothy encounters at the beginning of the novel represent farmers, as do the Winkies she later meets. Baum's wife frequently visited her niece, Dorothy Louise Gage. The infant became gravely sick and died on November 11, 1898, from "congestion of the brain" at exactly five months. When the baby, whom Maud adored as the daughter she never had, died, she was devastated and needed to consume medicine. To assuage her distress, Frank made his protagonist of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" a female named Dorothy. Uncle