On this date in 1952, Fay Stewart, otherwise known as Jessie Williams or simply "Aunt Jessie," passed away at the age of 67 in San Antonio, just a couple of months after selling the infamous Chicken Ranch brothel in La Grange to Edna Milton. Her sister-in-law, Eddie Ledda Moody, traveled from McLennan County to oversee Aunt Jessie’s burial in Sunset Memorial Park.
Fay Stewart’s parents came from Georgia (or possibly Nashville), moving to Waco well before she was born. The family lived for years on Franklin Street. In my book, I reported that the family struggled after Stewart’s father died unexpectedly in 1886. A local history buff in Waco has done some excellent research on that, and it seems the death of Stewart's father is the result of a census error in 1890. In fact, he outlived his wife who passed away in the 1890s before remarrying around the turn of the century. Information is sketchy after that, but circumstantial evidence would indicate Fay and her new stepmother did not get along well. By 1910, Fay’d moved to Austin and assumed the alias of Jessie Williams, as was customary for women in the sex trade intent on protecting their families’ reputations. All of this biographical information is updated in the new edition of my book, slated for publication in June.
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