Spouse protected Dr. Seuss’ legacy
Audrey Geisel, who persuaded the popular children’s author to address social issues, dies in La Jolla at 97.
Before popular children’s author Theodor “Dr. Seuss” Geisel died in 1991, he told his wife, Audrey, that she would be “the one who would have to live with all the critters and move them on.”
That she did, shepherding his legendary menagerie — the Cat in the Hat, the Grinch, Horton, the Lorax — into the 21st century.
Audrey Geisel died Wednesday at her home in La Jolla. She was 97.
She was a fierce protector of her husband’s creations and a major donor to institutions he supported.
She was born Audrey Stone on Aug. 14, 1921.
She met her first husband, cardiologist E. Grey Dimond, while she was working as a nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. They had two daughters.
In 1960, the family moved to La Jolla, where they came to know Ted Geisel and his first wife, Helen. After both marriages ended, Ted and Audrey were wed in 1968.
Audrey Geisel is sometimes credited with moving her husband to address more social issues in his books, such as “The Lorax,” which has environmental themes, and “The Butter Battle Book,” an anti-war story.
After his death in 1991 at age 87, the city held a tribute to Ted Geisel in Balboa Park, where his wife talked about his legacy.
“His name never comes up when you’re talking about the underbelly of the world,” she told the San Diego Union-Tribune. “It is always used when you’re talking about the good, the best of the world.”
A year later, she donated more than 4,000 items — original drawings and manuscripts, college notebooks, letters — to the library at UC San Diego.
Counterfeiters who thought Seuss’ death gave them free rein to copy his iconic images soon found that they were mistaken. His widow’s attorneys aggressively went after them for copyright infringement. One 1993 suit brought a $750,000 judgment against an Oxnard wholesaler.
Survivors include her daughters, Leagrey Dimond and Lark Grey DimondCates.