Lillian Disney

**Lillian** **Marie** **Disney (née Bounds)** is a historic figure, best known as having been wife of Walt Disney.

## History

### Real world

Lillian Disney was an ink and paint artist in early animated cartoons where she met a young animator named Walther "Walt" Disney. In 1925, Lillian and Walt married and frequently collaborated in the animated medium. Lillian aided in co-creating Mickey Mouse by having Walt rename him from Mortimer to Mickey as the name Mortimer sounded, "Too pompous".

Three years after Walt's death of cancer in 1966, Lillian remarried to a man named John L. Truyens until his own death in 1981. Exactly 31 years after Walt's death, a 98 year-old Lillian suffered from a fatal stroke in her Los Angeles home. Lillian died of the stroke's ramifications on the following morning.

### Disney Parks

Lillian Disney was the daughter of Willard P. Bounds, the U.S. marshal for the town of Rainbow Ridge in the Big Thunder region of Arizona. In the 1920s, she met a young Walt Disney who she assisted in the creation of his cartoon offspring, Mickey Mouse. This version of Walt Disney is believed to have been some form of magic user who likely was much older than his real-world counterpart.

In 1941, Walt, Lillian and several friends of theirs travelled to South America for a vacation and hired Jungle Navigation Co. affiliate Trader Sam to give them tours. Sam and Walt became close and eventually, Disney became the best customer at Sam's bar in the Polynesian isles. Walt died of terminal cancer in the year 1966, leaving Lillian a widow.

In 1971, the Walt Disney Company obtained a steamship known as *The Bailey-Finortner Floating Arts Palace* which had belonged to industrialist Merriweather Adam Pleasure. The company renamed this vessel to the, "Empress Lilly" and commemorated it in Lillian's honour.

## Appearances and allusions

### Disneyland Railroad

One of the carts on the Disneyland Railroad was named the, "Lilly Belle" by Walt Disney in tribute to his wife.

### Frontierland

Along the Rivers of America and outside of the Golden Horseshoe Saloon in Disneyland is a petrified tree from the pike petrified forest of Colorado. The plaque below the tree identifies it as having been given to Lillian as a gift by Walt in 1957.

### Main Street, U.S.A.

In the city-hall of Main Street is a fictitious book by W.E. Disney titled, "Lilybelle".

### Pleasure Island

Pleasure Island's restaurant the Empress Lilly was named for Lillian Disney in real life with Lillian having christened the ship. In the fictitious history of Pleasure Island it was named for Lillian Disney in 1971, having been a vessel previously belonging to S.E.A. member and Adventurers Club founder Merriweather Adam Pleasure. She is also presumably the retroactive namesake for the Lilly Plaza of Pleasure Island.

### Trader Sam's Enchanted Tiki Bar

Lillian Disney is featured in a photograph hung within this bar of her, Walt and several others disembarking from an airplane in Rio de Janeiro in 1941. Here she is shown alongside Trader Sam from the Jungle Cruise who in this continuity was their tour-guide.

## Connections

### Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

Lillian's father Willard P. Bounds is referenced in Big Thunder Mountain Railroad as a U.S. Marshal in the town of Rainbow Ridge involved in the operations of the Big Thunder Mining Company.

## Trivia

* Lillian's butterfly connection from real-life is located in the Skipper Canteen within the meeting-hall for the Society of Explorers and Adventurers.

## References

1. ↑ https://www.themainstreetmouse.com/2014/02/15/walts-partner-in-life-lillian-marie-disney/
2. ↑ https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2009/10/did-you-miss-it-the-disneyland-attraction-that’s-millions-of-years-old/
3. ↑ http://findingmickey.squarespace.com/other-hidden-dl/main-street-usa/2710574
4. ↑ https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112916523
5. ↑ https://www.instagram.com/p/CESA9VmgyLP/
6. ↑ https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2018/02/look-closer-big-thunder-mountain-railroad-at-disneyland-park/