Old Missoula

Poor Mae Durfee

The Story of Her Death in Missoula Revived

Somewhat Exaggerated Yet in the Main Correct – A Pathetic Picture Pathetically Painted

Readers of the Gazette will remember the sad fate which befell pretty Mae Durfee, the juvenile actress who died in this city last year under circumstances which did not reflect greatly upon the moral or human character of Nat Goodwin, the man in whose theatrical company the poor deluded woman was the leading lady. The account which follows is taken from the dramatic columns of the Philadelphia Press and speaks for itself. The pathetic picture, while in general well painted, contains some inaccuracies and exaggerations, especially the references to the locality and the surroundings of the occasion, which are excusable when known to emanate from the pen of the tenderfoot of the effete east, who imagines this country to be just as he has been taught It is – the wild and wooly west. Otherwise it is correct and the only regret to be expressed is on the delicacy displayed by the writer in omitting the names of the parties concerned. Following is the picture:

Far up the bleak hillside by a Montana mining town, where the voice of the wind is dismal and the silence is yet more drear, is a graveyard enclosed by a rickety, weatherbeaten fence of wood.

No wagon road approaches it; only a winding trail that is rarely trodden. Of the mounds within, there is a small one marked by only a storm-stained board, upon which appear some letters cut in the wood and forming a name.

The miners in the town grow wroth at times when they tell you the story of that grave, and their voices may tremble with also another emotion than anger in the narration. Only they and a few other people know the truth.

Little more than a year has passed since one of the most popular comedians on the American stage appeared in this city in a play which was new here, and which on the opening night was, therefore, viewed by such a large and knowing audience as usually witnesses an important first production.

The comedian shared the success of the evening with his company.

Much favor was bestowed on the ingenue of the cast. She was a very young and pretty actress, who had never before made a noteworthy, if any, appearance before this public. As she was thus a newcomer, her manifest cleverness was all the more pleasant to observe.

That about her which most subtly charmed attention was a high-bred air, fitting well so fair and dainty a face, so tall and delicate a person. Her hair was fine and golden, her eyes seemed across the foot-lights to be large and blue, although I do not know whether that was their actual color. Only a retroussé nose gave to the perfection of her facial contour that slight detriment which really accentuates and enlivens beauty.

In the lobby, between the acts, many first-nighters and other alert theatregoers spoke of the beauty and talent of this young actress, and numerous were the predictions of a brilliant career for her.

Her gentleness, her charming simulation of artlessness, her vivacity, all served to impress her name conspicuously on my memory that night, and I noticed afterward in the newspapers of other cities that admiration and applause followed her wherever she was seen.

She was only 19 then, but she was ambitious and earnest. The small triumphs of her career’s outset, the adulation of friends, the praise of newspapers, were ineffably sweet to her. Sweeter still was her dream of that great future which should be splendid with fulfillment of the promise of a lovely and gifted youth.

Already she had been married. While she was upon her tour in the comedian’s company, her husband was acting in a musical farce, I think. He, too, was traveling, and it was not often their ways met.

There were respects in which, like many other women of the temperament which predisposes it possessors to the stage life, she was no more than a child.

Suddenly and quietly she dropped out of record. When the comedian, after a visit to the Pacific coast, returned east, someone else was playing the part that had been hers. What had become of her?

Few can, and none will, tell the cause of that which led her to have a forbidden surgical operation performed upon her when the company was in Salt Lake City. Perhaps because she could not afford to remain behind, she went on, thereafter, with the company to San Francisco, continuing to fill her part.

From San Francisco she went to Portland, Ore., and then the company started upon its journey back to the east. Spokane Falls was the first stopping place on the route.

She would meet her husband in St. Paul. It was to avert discovery by him that she underwent a second surgical operation at Spokane Falls. She hoped to eradicate all trace of error, to begin life anew, to bury the past deep in her memory, out of sight of the world. Experience had taught her much. Who shall ever know of the tear shed in the quiet of night. And what apprehension has she that the sin by which she sought concealment was perhaps the greater one. She was a mere girl.

She acted her role at Spokane Falls as usual. Thither she came with the company, in one railroad “jump” of 258 miles to Missoula, Mont. The company was to play there one night only. She was too ill to work when she arrived in the town, and for the first time she missed a performance.

There is but one hotel in Missoula. They call it the Railroad House, and it is not an inviting place. Missoula itself is, perhaps, as forlorn a mountain town as you can find on the map. A depressing pall hangs over it most of the time, and even the sunshine there is cheerless. And it is so far away from everywhere.

But there are some warm hearts in Missoula. One of these belonged to the rough maid servant at the hotel, who watched and attended the sick actress. There are times when the heart of a woman opens to women only, and to this uncouth nurse whom she had never seen before, the girl told much of her story.

I can imagine, vaguely, that scene of confession; the low voice, the interrupting sobs, the weeping, the magic means by which the rudest of women can sooth and encourage.

That night she died.

On the next day the company left Missoula. It kept its engagement in the next town where it was booked, and the next, and the next. There was a change in the cast, of course, to fill the place of the member who had dropped out. Some one took the trouble of writing East about the girl, probably to her husband. And the comedian left money at the hotel to pay the expenses of a burial. Why, to be sure, should any one wait to see what had become of a body from which life had gone out?

But the serving woman, who had nursed the dying girl, told the story, and it was spread abroad until all the miners in the town knew it. They had never seen or heard of her, but the news of the dead girl in the hotel, left deserted to the care of strangers in their wild mountain town moved them. And fierce, indeed, were their utterances concerning the comedian.

And these strong men of Missoula took flowers and placed them about her body and upon her coffin, and filled the hearse with them; and they followed her, every man in town, up the winding trail to the grave which one of them had dug for her upon the mountain side; and they lowered her body with a gentleness that was new to them, and they piled the flowers upon it, and strewed them about her grave when it was closed; and, indeed, there never was seen another such funeral procession since the founding of Missoula.

There are more reasons than two why the names of people concerned should not be revealed here. But it is all true, this story of a career that began gaily amid lights and applause in the Eastern theaters and ended within a year in a lonely grave on the desolate mountain in Montana.

Wind and rain and cold have assailed the wooden grave mark, but it is set firm in the earth, and the name is cut deep with a knife.

Only the name – not even the additional words – “Aged 19.”

 

The above story appeared in the Missoula Weekly Gazette on March 25, 1891.

 

Regarding the likelihood of the truth of the above story is a notice in the publication, “The New York Dramatic Mirror” on January 1, 1910, which said the following:

To Mark Mae Durfee’s Grave.

C. A. Harnois and Dick P. Sutton, of the Harnois enterprises, Harnois and Union theatres, Missoula, Mont., have started a subscription list to erect a stone over the grave of Mae Durfee, a young actress who met a tragic fate in Missoula while a member of a traveling company and lies buried in the Potter’s Field in the cemetery at that place. Several attempts have been made to interest the profession in this worthy cause, and now that the matter has been taken up by Mr. Harnois, it is believed that enough actors will become interested to purchase a suitable memorial to mark the last resting place of an unhappy girl who was a member of their profession. Mr. Harnois, whose address is the Harnois Theatre, Missoula, writes The Mirror: “No doubt many actors would assist me did they know her sad story, and I will accept anything from any one who will be kind enough to assist.”

 

Evidently, Charlie Harnois succeeded in his efforts. Missoula City Cemetery records show that Mae Durfee was buried there in 1890, however her age is listed as unknown. Perhaps that can be corrected someday.

https://www.newspapers.com/image/349597744

 

Local author Daniel MacMaster wrote about May Durfee in chapter 33 of his book ‘Thirty Years In Hell’ – see link below:

https://archive.org/stream/thirtyyearsinhel00macm#page/246/mode/2up