Mary Fayman

Mary E. “Pauline” Fielder Fayman

1867-1898
Pianist and Singer
 
Buried in Loosley Cemetery, Block 11, Lot 21, Grave 3


(Image courtesy of the Pioneers’ Cemetery Association)

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Mary E. Fielder was born about 1867 in Georgia. She was the youngest child of Herbert Fielder and Mary Blance.  Her father, a lawyer, was a prolific writer involved in southern politics.

Since Mary’s sister Kallura was sent to Ward’s Seminary for Young Ladies (a finishing school) in Tennessee, it seems likely that Mary too attended Ward’s where she became a concert-level pianist and vocalist.

Around 1884, the Fielders  relocated to Deming, New Mexico, where Mr. Fielder opened a new law office. Here, Mary met and married James William Fayman, a clerk for the Southern Pacific Railroad. 

The young couple moved to Los Angeles, California in 1887, where they became involved with the social life of the Los Angeles area and were often mentioned in the newspapers. Mary taught music and performed with her students as well as solo. 

Sometime around 1894, the Faymans moved to Truckee, California. There, Mary became involved in a romantic relationship with a well-known male resident of that city. Their marriage at an end, James returned to Los Angeles and Mary went to live with her brother in Silver City, New Mexico.

Mary’s movements during the next few years are difficult to trace, but somewhere along the way she developed a fondness for absinthe, a liquor often associated with artists and a bohemian lifestyle. She is said to have gone to Tucson, Arizona, to sing in saloons and then returned to Los Angeles, where she rented lodgings under the name of Josie Black. She arrived in Phoenix, Arizona, at the end of 1897 where she found employment playing piano and singing at the Anheuser Saloon under the name of Pauline Fayman.

Mary had been drinking heavily on the evening of February 27, 1898. Around 1 AM, she returned to her room at the St. Lawrence Hotel where she took a large dose of a white powder. A doctor was summoned but she refused medical help when he arrived, claiming it was only baking soda. She was discovered dead the following afternoon, and a coroner’s inquest determined that she had in fact ingested morphine.

The investigation into her death also turned up a photograph that had been torn into pieces. Written on the back of one scrap was “Don’t bury me in a pauper’s grave. Don’t telegraph my brother at Silver City.” 

Mary’s friends and brother carried out her last wish. She was buried in Loosley Cemetery in Phoenix, Arizona, under the name of Pauline Fayman, although her surname on the grave marker is spelled incorrectly as Fanman.

© 2018 by Patty Gault, PCA. Last revised March 2018.

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