Gypsy Jill
I met Jill when she was 18, working as a waitress at the Kansas City International House of Pancakes on the night shift.
It was love at first sight...or maybe it was 'like' at first sight and love at first listen when she played her guitar and sang for me later.


Jill at 18
Because we don't know the future, I didn't know then that she would become the most important person in my life; my greatest love.



We had been together for a few weeks when she suggested that I get my left ear pierced. I told her I didn't want to do that, but that I always wanted a tattoo...so we compromised.

She watched the artist work as he created the seagull flying over ocean waves on my upper right arm. That may have planted the seed of the idea that would later lead to tattooing as an expression of her artistic talent, a career that would enable her to touch the lives of so many-- not just with beautiful ink designs, but in other important ways as well.





In Venice, California, with her new winged-woman tattoo

Jill and Monte the Python

We were married in Austin, Texas on January 25, 1982





Baking some bread

Working in a store in Austin. She painted artistic signs for their sales promotions.


Jill admired the artist Olivia, and posed for this interpretation of one of Olivia's fantasy pieces.
Although our marriage didn't last forever, our friendship endured...a lifetime. It would have been for a longer lifetime. but at the end of November, 2009, Jill died of brain cancer. She was 49.

This page is my remembrance of her life and the love we shared. I may add more to it, but nothing I could say would come close to describing the most remarkable woman I have ever known, nor the effect that she had on so many in so many ways.


Gypsy Jill (this page)
Gypsy Jill Page 2
Gypsy Jill: Decorating Her
A magazine article
Tattoos By Gypsy Jill


My Friendly Universe