YOUNG FAUN ROBERTS

Ma Jolie, Faun Roberts, Oil on burlap, 1923

Faun Roberts was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1882. Her father, Arthur Canon Roberts was a famous Pentecostal pastor who was fond of fasting and had a propensity for eschatological visions of fires, floggings and midtribulation rapture. Faun, who at an early age developed a healthy skepticism regarding her father's glossolalic growls and mutterings was characterized by her kin as "difficult." A scrawny, introverted poetry writing teenager, young Faun recognized in herself early on, a strong, passionate attraction to women.

In 1902, Faun Roberts boarded the SS La Touraine for Le Havre and never set foot in America again.