May Bonfils Stanton

Mary Madeline "May" Bonfils Stanton (April 30, 1883 – March 11, 1962) was an American heiress and philanthropist. She and her younger sister, Helen Bonfils, succeeded their father, Frederick Gilmer Bonfils, as principal owners of The Denver Post. However, May's elopement at age 21 with a non-Catholic salesman had forged a rift in her relationship with her parents and sister that worsened when Helen inherited the majority of their parents' estates. Following a three-year legal battle over the inheritance, the sisters cut off all communication with each other. May married twice but did not have children. Living a reclusive life, she invested her fortune into building and furnishing her estate in Lakewood, Colorado – which included a mansion that was an exact replica of Marie Antoinette's Petit Trianon château in Versailles – and into many philanthropic endeavors in the state of Colorado. The Bonfils–Stanton Foundation, established by her second husband after her death in 1962, continues to support the arts in Colorado. She was posthumously inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 1985. Early life and family Mary Madeline "May" Bonfils was born in Troy, Missouri, to Frederick Gilmer Bonfils and his wife, Belle Barton Bonfils. She had one sister, Helen, six years her junior. In 1894 the family moved to Kansas where Frederick ran legal lotteries, and in 1895 to Denver, where Frederick and Harry H. Tammen purchased a newspaper that they renamed The Denver Post. In Denver, Bonfils studied at St. Mary's Academy and the Wolcott School for Girls, an elite private girls' school. She went on to graduate from Brownell School for Girls in New York. The Bonfils girls had a strict Catholic upbringing. Frederick was especially vigilant with his eldest daughter and warned both girls against dating younger men because they "were only out for their money". After Bonfils graduated from Brownell, Frederick escorted her to Europe, where she studied French, art, and music, and mastered both piano and music composition. In 1904, at the age of 21, Bonfils eloped with Clyde V. Berryman, a non-Catholic sheet music salesman; they were married in a civil ceremony in Golden, Colorado. Frederick was outraged and threatened to halve her inheritance if she did not file for divorce. The elopement opened a rift between Bonfils and her parents and sister, which only worsened with time.