Mary Mason Fairbanks was born in Perry, Ohio, but later lived in New York State, where she attended the Norwich Academy and the Troy Female Seminary. She taught school in South Carolina, Kentucky, and New York before marrying, in 1852, Abel Fairbanks, co-owner of the Cleveland Herald. They had two children. Mary met SLC on the 1867 voyage of the steamship Quaker City to Europe and the Near East, which she was covering for the Herald under her nom de plume “Myra.” They became friends, SLC addressing Fairbanks jocularly as “Mother.” Fairbanks was an important confidante to SLC during his courtship of Olivia Langdon, but their closeness decreased thereafter. In 1879 financial reverses forced Abel Fairbanks to declare bankruptcy and by 1886 the family was out of the newspaper business in Cleveland. They subsequently lived in Omaha, Nebraska, and in Newton, Massachusetts.