Patricia Neal

Patricia Neal (20 January 1926 – 8 August 2010) was an American actress. In 1953 she married British author Roald Dahl; they had five children together.

The phone rang. It was the doctor. He said, “Mrs. Dahl, Olivia’s dead [from measles]. Did you hear me? I said Olivia is dead.” I said, yes, thank you. I couldn’t believe how cold he was. Roald came back from the hospital and he cried. Oh, he cried. He had seen her dead. I unfortunately never did. My sisters-in-law talked me out of it. I wish they hadn’t. I stayed up that first night just looking out the window. Your love is dead, and the sun still comes up. It’s just so sad.

I was the strong one at that point. I don’t want to brag about myself, but I’ve never seen anything like it. Roald really almost went crazy. I held everything together. I cooked all day and went on. Of course 34 years ago anything like a survivors’ support group was virtually unheard of. You had to pull yourself together. I loved Olivia, loved her, but my God, I had two more children. I had to go on.

Over the years, I found that talking about Olivia helped immeasurably. Roald... couldn’t say a word. It was locked inside him.

Part of my healing came by having another child. No one could replace Olivia, but a new child would begin to heal the emptiness. In a letter to my doctor in California soon after Olivia’s death, I wrote, “I absolutely believe in a soul. And I long to let her go, to free her and hope she will be born again to me.” Two years later, Ophelia was born and a year after that, Lucy.

Over the years, I did other things to help keep Olivia’s memory alive, donating a silver cup to her school each year to be awarded to the best high jumper, as she was in 1962. And when I played Olivia Walton in the TV film that preceded The Waltons television series, I insisted that my character’s name not be changed to “Mary” as the producers wanted.

I keep a few mementos of Olivia around the house. One is a letter that she wrote when she was about 6 to a family friend. It says, “Dear Sheila, Thank you for the bubbly gum. I hope you are well. The bubbly was the most exciting present I ever had and I can blow bubbles... Love, Olivia. XXXXX.” That’s my Olivia. Isn’t she a honey of a girl?^[1].