Tulas ad: What Walt Disney's Wife 👆

You won't believe what Walt Disney's wife wore around her neck every day for 31 years after he died. I've worked at Disneyland for 11 years. For the last four, I've been one of the guides who walks guests through Walt's history in the park. Where he stood on opening day. Which windows on Main Street have his friends' names painted on them. Where the hidden Mickeys are. If you've been, you've probably walked right past most of it. Walt built the whole park on orange groves in Anaheim in about a year. It opened on July 17, 1955. Main Street is modeled on Marceline, Missouri, the little town he grew up in. And above the fire station at the front of Main Street, there's a small apartment where Walt used to stay when he worked late in the park. There's a lamp in the window of that apartment. When Walt was in the park, the lamp was on, so everyone working knew he was there. Since he died, they've kept it lit. That lamp gets more photos than almost anything on my tour. People cry under it. But the thing I can't stop thinking about isn't the lamp. It's something Walt's wife wore. Something so small that out of all the millions of people who've walked under that window, I don't think anyone ever noticed it. Her name was Lillian. And this is her story, not his. Lillian Bounds was an ink and paint artist working on Walt's cartoons in the 1920s. She traced the drawings onto film by hand. They got married on July 13, 1925, at her brother's house in Idaho. Three years later, on a train ride home from New York, Walt showed her a drawing of a mouse he wanted to call Mortimer. She told him Mortimer sounded too depressing. She said, call him Mickey. So when people say Walt Disney made Mickey Mouse, that's mostly true. Lillian named him. They had two daughters, Diane and Sharon. And on July 13, 1955, four days before Disneyland opened to the public, Walt and Lillian threw their 30th anniversary party inside the park. Before anyone else in the world got to see it, it was theirs for one night. Walt died on December 15, 1966. Lung cancer. He was 65. Lillian lived another 31 years. She remarried in 1969. She gave $50 million to start the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. She died in December of 1997, at 98. When I started researching her for the tour, I went through every photo of her I could find. And I noticed something. In almost every picture of Lillian after 1966, there's the same thin gold chain at her collar. Tiny gold beads with short gold lines between them. At park events. At the Concert Hall. At her second wedding. I asked around. One of the older cast members told me it was a gift from Walt. So that's what I put in my tour, and I told it hundreds of times. That wasn't what it was. Last October, there was a woman on my tour, maybe 75, in a cardigan, who stayed at the back the whole time. When we stopped under the lamp and I held up the photo of Lillian, she smiled like she knew something. After the tour she came up to me and said, "That wasn't a gift from Walt." Her mother had been Lillian's hairdresser for almost twenty years. Every Thursday, at the house in Holmby Hills. "It's Morse code," she said. "It says 7-13-25. Their wedding day." She said Lillian had it made a few months after Walt died. Her mother asked her about it once, and Lillian told her why. After Walt died, Lillian couldn't go anywhere without being recognized. The market, church, dinner. And every single person said the same thing. "Oh, Mrs. Disney. I'm so sorry." Then they'd tell her what Walt meant to them. Their favorite movie. The first time they took their kids to the park. Hundreds of I'm-so-sorrys. Every week. For years. Lillian told her, "Everybody gets to miss Walt out loud. I just want to miss him quietly." So she put the day he was only hers on a chain where nobody could read it. The whole world got July 17th, the day the park opened. She kept July 13th. The woman unbuttoned the top of her cardigan. She was wearing one too. "My husband's name," she said. "Frank. My daughter got it for me after he passed. You can still get them, you know." I asked her, a little embarrassed, where. She said a company called Tulas. You tell them what you want on it, a name, a date, anything, and they turn it into the beads and lines on a fine gold chain. Everyone else just sees a pretty necklace. You're the only one who knows what it says. I looked it up on my break. I figured anything connected to the Disneys would cost a few hundred dollars at least. It cost less than a week of groceries. It's 14K gold fill. It's waterproof, so you can shower in it and sleep in it and never take it off. It's hypoallergenic. And it has a lifetime warranty. The same thing Lillian wore, made today. I ordered one for my mom that night. My mom and dad came to Disneyland on their honeymoon in 1971. They came back every few years after that, with me and my brother, and later with the grandkids. My dad, Gary, died three years ago. I've worked in the park this whole time. My mom hasn't come once since. When I asked her why, she said, "I'm not walking down Main Street by myself, honey. Everybody's so happy. And everybody asks where he is." I put Dad's name on it. Gary. And 1971. I gave it to her at her kitchen table. She looked at it and said, "That's very pretty, sweetheart," in the voice she uses for gifts that are going in a drawer. So I told her. The beads and lines were Morse code. It said Gary and 1971. Nobody at the store or at church or at the park would ever know what it said, so nobody would ever ask. She held it in her palm for a long time. Then she asked, "Where's the G?" I showed her. The first one. Dash, dash, dot. She closed her hand around it and cried. My mom isn't a crier. She cried at that table like she hadn't let herself in three years. She put it on that night and hasn't taken it off since. Two months later, she came to the park. First time since Dad. She walked down Main Street with me on my day off, and when we got to the fire station, she stopped under the lamp. Her hand went right up to her collar and found the G. She stood there for a minute. Then she said, "Okay. Let's go get a churro." Her sister saw it at Easter and ordered two, one for herself and one for her best friend from high school, who lost her husband last spring. Mom's neighbor ordered one for her own mother. Every single one of them said the same thing. "I wish I'd had this at the funeral." I still do the tour. I still stop under the lamp. But I tell it differently now. That lamp is for the millions of people who come through every year. It's how the whole world remembers Walt. Lillian didn't need the whole world to remember him for her. She needed one thing that was only hers, something she could wear into any room without one more person saying I'm so sorry. She wasn't hiding him. She was doing what every widow is trying to do: keep him close and still get through the grocery store. You don't need a theme park with his name on it. You just need what Lillian wore at her collar. If you've read this far, you probably already know whose name you'd put on yours. It's from Tulas. You choose exactly what goes on it. His name. Your wedding date. The year you met. A nickname nobody else ever used. It only means something to the person wearing it. Right now they're doing buy 2, get 1 free, with free shipping worldwide. Each one is made to your message, so the sooner you order, the sooner he's with you. If you're tired of the I'm-so-sorrys, this is how you keep him close and still walk into any room as yourself. And if you know a woman who just lost her person, this is what you give her. Lillian Disney wore hers for 31 years. My mom wore hers down Main Street. Link's below: tulas.co/products/morse-code-necklace