Mary Wallace Shillito

The younger Mary Wallace Shillito associated with the Château des Avenières can now be distinguished from older Cincinnati namesakes. Claude Régat’s local historical account gives her birth as 23 July 1878 and names Gordon Shillito and Jane Gaff as her parents. It connects Mary and Violet with Natalie Barney’s childhood circle. The OutHistory exhibit by Suzanne Stroh and Samantha Pious independently discusses the sisters’ childhood friendship with Natalie, citing Barney’s memoir. Those original memoir pages and civil records remain to be examined.

A historical-society photograph explicitly identifies Mary cutting the ribbon at the Salève road inauguration in August 1931. This image is collected, with photographer and reuse permission unresolved. It establishes a captioned historical reference, not proof of every claim made about her private life. Her independent biography still requires property, family, correspondence, and artistic or intellectual evidence. She married the engineer Assan Dina on 22 January 1914.

Further information and verification

• Claude Régat, Château des Avenières historical account, 2012, printed pages 2–3. Retrospective local research, not an original civil certificate.
• Stroh and Pious, Eva, Natalie, Pauline, OutHistory, 2026; note 7 cites Souvenirs indiscrets, pages 27 and 40.
• La Salévienne photograph GL116.

Older namesakes remain distinct candidates and are not merged into this life. Romantic assertions from occult or promotional histories have not been adopted as facts.