Russell, Ina (Dillard, III) 1936-

views updated

Russell, Ina (Dillard, III) 1936-

PERSONAL: Born July 2, 1936, in Hendersonville, NC; married William T. Grier, 1955 (divorced, 1958); married Carl A. Posey (a novelist), 1959 (divorced, 1981); children: (second marriage) Margaret D., Robin R., Carl A. III, Honor B. Education: Attended Mary Washington College, Catholic University of America, and University of Colorado; atteded Texas A & M University, 1960-61; San Diego State University, B.A. (English; magna cum laude). Politics: Democrat. Religion: Roman Catholic.

ADDRESSES: Home and office—730 Quince Circle, Boulder, CO 80304.

CAREER: Freelance writer, editor, and commercial artist, c. 1978-; 13th Street Journal, Boulder, CO, managing editor, 1984-89. Worked variously as a typist, librarian, and professional assistant. Member of Mountain Planning Team of Boulder County Long Range Planning Commission; member of board of directors, Boulder Art Center.

MEMBER: Western Social Science Association.

WRITINGS:

(Editor and illustrator) Sugarloaf Mountain Cookbook, SLVFD (Boulder, CO), 1974.

(Editor) Jeb Alexander, Jeb and Dash: A Diary of Gay Life, 1918-1945, Faber & Faber (Boston, MA), 1993.

Also contributor to numerous periodicals, including Boulder Daily Camera, Artweek, and Boulder magazine.

SIDELIGHTS: Freelance writer and commercial artist Ina Russell comes from a distinguished American family; her grandfather was a justice on the Supreme Court of Georgia, and one of her uncles was a U.S. senator from the same state. But her most recent familial claim to fame is her maternal uncle, to whom, in her edited version of his diaries, she has given the pseudonym Jeb Alexander. Knowing her uncle Jeb had been keeping a diary since he was twelve years old, Russell requested that he leave it to her in his will. He did so, dying in 1965. Reading Jeb's manuscript confirmed to Dillard that her uncle was gay. She put aside the fifty-volume manuscript until attitudes toward homosexuality had become tolerant enough that she felt she could find a publisher, and in the late 1980s she began editing what would become Jeb and Dash: A Diary of Gay Life, 1918-1945. The finished product is, in the words of Publishers Weekly reviewer Robert Dahlin, a "rare and private glimpse backward" that "reveals what it was like to be a homosexual in Washington, D.C., in the first half of the 20th century."

Russell discussed her approach to her work on her uncle's diary with Dahlin: "I blended some of the characters together when there was nothing really to differentiate them, and I worked on the story line. I knew there were several things I needed to follow: gay history, Dash [the man Jeb loved most], Jeb's writer's block and the window into his life and times that the diaries provide." She also concluded of her uncle: "Jeb was a beautiful writer."

In addition to her work on Jeb and Dash, Russell has served as the managing editor of 13th Street Journal, an art periodical based in Boulder, Colorado, and has had numerous art-related articles published in periodicals.

Russell told CA: "These days I receive mail from gay men all over the world" for whom Jeb and Dash resonates. "Several have remarked on their appreciation of the fact that I have 'kept my word' to my uncle in seeing that the diaries were published. It should be noted that my uncle asked nothing of me; expressed no requests that the work be published; placed no conditions on his bequest. He simply, noncommentally bequeathed the diaries to me in his will. I was straight, and I was very young. I can hardly imagine a greater act of good faith."