Dilys Evans, a native of Wales who worked as a nurse at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York when she met my biographical subject Nell Blaine, has died at age eighty-eight. Nell had been stricken with polio during a sojourn in Greece, and was confined to an iron lung. Finally able to breathe on her own and move into an apartment, she was now a paraplegic who depended on Dilys for her daily needs. Nell's determination to travel to Europe and visit galleries and museums despite the difficulties inherent in being a wheelchair user gave Dilys her first exposure to the history of art. Formal study of drawing and painting followed. As the August 1 obituary in Publishers Weekly recounts, Dilys went on to become an illustrator, an art director at the children's magazine Cricket, an agent for children's book illustrators, a children's book packager, and the author of Show & Tell: Exploring the Fine Art of Children's Book Illustration (2008, Chronicle Books).
The PW article, by Shannon Maughan, offers a loving summary of key events in Dilys's life, incorporating interviews with people who worked with her. But one important fact was left out: Dilys and Nell were lovers. Their union was no secret to people in their circle, and it is treated forthrightly in my biography, ALIVE STILL. Perhaps Maughan was familiar only with a previously published monograph, Nell Blaine: Her life and work, which makes no mention of Nell's sexuality. I suppose it is also possible that such information was thought inappropriate to include in a celebration of the life of a person connected with children's literature. But in 2024 this omission seems overly cautious. After her relationship with Nell ended (badly, though there was a later reconciliation), Dilys had a much longer intimate partnership with another woman. Why not allow this dimension of her life to enter the historical record?