Evaline Ness (1911-1986)

Evaline Ness was born Evaline Michelow on April 24, 1911, in Union City, Ohio. Her father was Albert Michelow (1867-1932), a Swedish-born brickmason. Her mother was Myrtle W. (Carter) Michelow (1875-1958), a dressmaker born in Virginia. Evaline's parents were married in 1898 in North Carolina. They had four children, Rudolph, Eloise, Josephine, and Evaline, the youngest. Maybe the title character in Evaline's book Josefina February (1963), shown below, was named for her older sister.

The Michelow family lived in North Carolina, Virginia, and Ohio before settling in Pontiac, Michigan, when Evaline was a young child. She graduated from Pontiac Central High School in 1929. In 1930, at age eighteen, she lived with her parents in Pontiac and worked as a librarian at the city public library. In 1931-1932, she studied to be a librarian at Ball State Teachers College, now Ball State University, in Muncie, Indiana, thus her connection to the Hoosier State. While in Muncie, she was also a fashion model. After leaving Ball State, Evaline Michelow studied at the Chicago Art Institute from 1933 to 1935. She worked as a fashion illustrator throughout the 1930s.

Evaline Michelow was married five times and was known by her second husband's surname. Her first marriage was to a man named McAndrews. He seems to have disappeared from the public record. They were divorced sometime in the 1930s. Her second husband was Eliott Ness (1903-1957) of Untouchables fame, whom she met on a train traveling between Chicago and New York. Both were married at the time but got divorced soon enough, he just in time apparently to marry her. (Eliot Ness' divorce came in 1939 in Florida. He and Evaline were married in late October 1939.) The couple lived in Cleveland and Washington, D.C. They divorced in 1945 or 1946 or 1951, but she kept his name. There were three other husbands, last of whom was Arnold A. Bayard (1904-1988), an engineer and wine connoisseur. They had homes in New York and Florida. The two lie together--or at least they have headstones next to each other--at Snow Cemetery in Truro, Massachusetts. As you might guess, Evaline Ness was a free spirit. "I don't need a husband all the time," she said. And though children intrigued her and she wrote and illustrated books about them, she never had any of her own.

Evaline Ness was a fashion illustrator, magazine illustrator, commercial artist, painter, and children's book author and illustrator. Her first illustrations for a children's book were for Story of Ophelia by Mary J. Gibbons (1954). Other books which she illustrated include:

• The Bridge by Charlton Ogburn (1957)
• The Sherwood Ring by Elizabeth Marie Pope (1958)
• Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell (1960)
• Thistle and Thyme: Tales and Legends from Scotland by Sorche Nic Leodhas (1962)
• A Gift for Sula Sula by Evaline Ness (1963)
• Josefina February by Evaline Ness (1963)
• All in the Morning Early by Sorche Nic Leodhas (1963), a Caldecott Honor Book
• Exactly Alike by Evaline Ness (1964)
• Josie and the Snow by Helen E. Buckley (1964)
• A Pocketful of Cricket by Rebecca Caudill (1964), a Caldecott Honor Book
• The Princess and the Lion by Elizabeth Coatsworth (1964)
• A Double Discovery by Evaline Ness (1965)
• Tom Tit Tot: An English Folk Tale retold by Virginia Haviland (1965), a Caldecott Honor Book
• Favorite Fairy Tales Told in Italy by Virginia Haviland (1965)
• Sam, Bangs and Moonshine by Evaline Ness (1966), for which she won a Caldecott Medal
• Books by Lloyd Alexander, including:
• The Book of Three (1964)
• The Black Cauldron (1965)
• The Castle of Llyr (1965)
• Coll and His White Pig (1965)
• Isle of Mona (1966)
• Taran Wanderer (1967)
• The Truthful Harp (1967)
• The High King (1968)
• Mr. Miacca, an English Folktale by Evaline Ness (1967)
• The Girl and the Goatherd by Evaline Ness (1970)
• Some of the Days of Everett Anderson by Lucille Clifton (1971)
• Everett Anderson's Christmas Coming by Lucille Clifton (1971)
• Amelia Mixed the Mustard and Other Poems (1975)
• Four Rooms from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to Cut Out and Color by Evaline Ness (1977)

The list above is by no means complete.

Evaline Ness had an extraordinary run from 1963 to 1966 during which she won three Caldecott Honors and a Caldecott Medal. She is tied for seventh among winners of the most Caldecott awards.

By 1979, when the Palm Beach Post published a profile of her (Apr. 5, 1979), Evaline was tired of illustrating. Her last book was The Hand-Me-Down Doll by Steven Kroll (1983). Evaline Ness died on August 12, 1986, in Kingston, New York. Her remains were cremated and her ashes scattered. The stone at Snow Cemetery may be only for old time's sake.

Evaline Michelow Ness (1911-1986), her high school yearbook photograph, 1929.

Backdated to February 2, 2022.

Text copyright 2022 Terence E. Hanley