Childhood Shadows: The Hidden Story of the Black Dahlia Murder

Born and raised in Medford, Massachusetts, Mary Pacios has lived in various parts of the country, from California to Wyoming and parts in between. Pacios earned a BFA (1962) from the Massachusetts College of Art, Boston (Mass Art) with a major in painting and a minor in printmaking. She was the first single mother of children to be admitted to Mass Art as a freshman. The dean, who believed a woman with children belonged at home, was aghast and called Pacios into his office. He requested that she withdraw, claiming Pacios could not possibly finish the demanding program and was taking up valuable space. Pacios refused and went on to earn her BFA. However, when Pacios applied for a student loan, she was turned down because, although she was head of her household, according to the law in 1961, Pacios still needed a man's signature on her loan application. (Her brother Robert K. Pacios graciously provided said signature.) Pacios received an MA with an individual major in Art and Social Change from California State University, Stanislaus (1977) where she studied printmaking with Martin Camarata under whose auspices she began working in the medium of relief prints. Her large linocuts subsequently received numerous prizes and awards.

An anti-war activist during the Viet Nam War, Pacios and her then-husband Cliff Humphrey were steering committee members and spokespersons for the first San Diego, California anti-war teach-in. During the late 1960s, the couple along with Betty Schwimmer and Chuck Herrick, formed the environmental organization Ecology Action. The historic organization's files are now housed in the Special Collections of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

Pacios is the author of Childhood Shadows: The Hidden Story of the Black Dahlia Murder. Dan Jackson, producer of the History Channel documentary on the Black Dahlia murder case, praised Childhood Shadows for its "journalistic integrity"; Rusty Fisher described the book as a "compelling view into the other side of a legendary true crime, that of the victim ... written by a woman who knew the victim from her childhood." Pacios donated her Elizabeth "Bette" Short / Black Dahlia research files to the Medford Historical Society in their hometown of Medford, Massachusetts.

The work of Pacios, shown extensively throughout the United States and internationally, has been acquired by: the Achenbach Foundation for the Graphic Arts of the San Francisco Museums; The Art Museum of Santa Cruz, CA; The Haggin Museum, Stockton, CA; Claremont College; El Museo del Barrio in New York City; Mystic Sea: The Museum of America and the Sea in Mystic Connecticut; California State University, Stanislaus; and the Zuckerman Museum, Atlanta, Georgia as well as by numerous private collections.
Mary Pacios, now settled in Portland, Oregon, enjoys a semi-active life, printing a couple of days a week at Portland State University, taking a nightly Tai Chi class, meeting weekly with the Park Blocks Writers group, all the while partaking of an occasional Happy Hour with friends and keeping her toes wet in the waters of social change.