Meredith (Boyington) Disney

MEREDITH ALVAH (BOYINGTON) FISHER, DISNEY was the wife of Raymond Arnold Disney, an elder brother to Walt Disney. She was the Mother of Charles Elias Disney and Daniel H. Disney. She had previously been married to Charles W. Fisher. The family resided in Southern California for many, many years. Meredith was the co-founder of LodeStar Pictures, an independent feature film financing enterprise with offices in Hollywood and Burbank, CA. Meredith also taught in the second grade in a grammar school for several years. She also worked for The Kansas City Times newspaper. She first met Raymond when her very close friend Edna Francis, who also worked for The Kansas City Times in Kansas City, Missouri, introduced Meredith to Raymond Arnold Disney at a church dance. Later, Edna married Roy Oliver Disney, a younger brother to Raymond. Later, it was brothers Walter Elias Disney and Roy O. Disney who first established the Disney Bros. Animation Studios in Hollywood that later became and is now known as The Walt Disney Company. Meredith's husband Raymond owned his own insurance company in Los Angeles for many years and he handled all of the insurance needs for brothers Walt and Roy when they first established their Animation Studio and as their enterprises continued to grow and to flourish! Meredith was also an accomplished musician who played the piano and violin and she was a lyricist and music composer. She was actively involved with raising funds for the construction of the new Roman Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels and The Walt Disney Concert Hall, both located in downtown Los Angeles. She was always committed to privately helping others and she literally gave numerous people automobiles and she paid off the mortgages for numerous families she had learned were in such dire need of assistance, people who were really hurting, and people she usually never personally would ever know! In her own words, she said: "God knows the names of the people I might have assisted and I always believed my good fortunes were always intended to help others!" Meredith was an all-out advocate for children and she believed in what her Catholic Faith taught regarding abortion, and that every life was precious from conception to natural death. And she would qualify this belief with an all-out: "Period!" Meredith passed away on February 2, 1998 as the result of an auto accident that also seriously injured both of her sons. Her Roman Catholic Mass of Christian Burial was held on February 14, 1998 in her home parish of Our Lady of Malibu in Malibu, California. His Eminence Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, the Archbishop of Los Angeles, was the main Celebrant for her Mass. She was then entombed in the Holy Redeemer Chapel in the Risen Christ Mausoleum in Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery and Mausoleum in Culver City, California. Close family and friends served as Pallbearers including Roy E. Disney, Ron W. Miller, Robert and Richard Sherman, Elmer Bernstein, Peter O'Malley, Charlton Heston, David Nelson, Michael Jackson, Merv Griffin, the Rev. Dr. Robert H. Schuller and the Rev. Father Edward M. Foster. Her funeral arrangements were entrusted to the Callanan Family Mortuary in Hollywood, California.