Wednesday, April 24, 2024
Eva Dunbar Bailey came to the end of a full, 97 year-long life on Tuesday, September 13, 2022. She was born January 5, 1925, in Kingston, New York to Henry Fowler and Ilse (Knauth) Dunbar.
After attending Eastman and Julliard schools of music, she took a job as principal violist in the New Orleans Symphony orchestra. While there, she met and married Ralph Bailey, a medical student at Tulane University. In their 65 years together, they lived in such exotic places as Afghanistan and the Bahamas in addition to numerous places in the United States including Nacogdoches and Gatesville. Eva maintained her music career as much as practical, playing viola with the San Francisco, CA, Dallas, and Tyler, TX symphony orchestras, teaching strings at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, and for numerous private students.
Eva is survived by three children: Clyde Bailey of Little Rock, Arkansas (his wife, Patricia Keightley), Ilse Bailey of San Antonio (her husband, Al Graham), and Cindy Grayson of Nacogdoches; four grandchildren, Joshua Fisher of Nacogdoches, Bobby Fisher of Nacogdoches, Eva Graham of Gatesville, and Galen Graham of Denton; one of her five siblings, Susan Barrymore of Santa Barbara, CA, and a number of nieces and nephews and their offspring.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you may donate to the Nature Conservancy, the Stephen F. Austin music department, the Audubon society, or a charity of your choice in her honor.
A celebration of her life may be planned in the future.
