Earlier this week, someone on FaceBook posted an artist photo of a young woman, fingers in mouth, standing next to an Edison W-250. After a little discussion about the machine, the question came up about the history of the artist. Googling brings up little more than discographies, so I dusted off my research cap and pieced together some facts about her life. It may be interesting to some.
Sybil Sanderson Fagan was born May 27, 1895 in Huntington, Indiana. Sometime between 1900 and 1910, the family moved to Springfield Ohio. In an interview printed in "The Music Trades" in 1919, she stated that she was named after the opera singer, Sybil Sanderson. She began whistling at the age of 5 and later, when a professional whistler visited her home, she decided that she could whistle a little better than the average person. She also studied piano. She had a short - and odd - marriage to a New York playwright, Eugene B. Bardin, in 1920. According to Fagan's divorce petition, she had no sooner met Bardin than he proposed marriage, both threatening to kill or drug her if she didn't. She inferred Bardin put a drug into her tea on Feb 22nd and they were married that same day. She immediately boarded a train for her parent's home in Ohio, then sued for divorce in June. The divorce was finalized on September 2, 1920. The 1930 census shows Fagan living in a Manhattan boarding house. Singer George W. Ballard and his wife were neighbors in the same building. On January 6, 1932, Fagan married violinist Joseph E. Chapek. She died on September 5, 1974 in Barrington, Illinois and buried in the Evergreen Cemetery in Barrington. They were married 42 years. _______________________________________________ Phono-L mailing list http://phono-l.org
