The following story was found on http://ragpiano.com/ragtime4a.shtml
and was written by Bill Edwards


Grace Marie Bolen
(July 20, 1884 to February 16, 1974) Compositions The Fair: March (1898)
The Black Diamond (1899) From Sea to Sea: March (1899)
The Smoky Topaz (1901)

Grace M. Bolen was born to James A. Bolen and Frances "Fannie" (Carter) Bolen, who were married in June of 1882. Raised in Kansas City, Missouri. Grace was the oldest of two girls and two boys, including James Griffith (3/20/1886), Frances (7/1891) and Lorraine (9/1892). The family was fairly well off as her father ran Bolen Coal in Kansas City. The family was notable enough that Grace made the social pages in the Kansas City Journal and the Saint Louis Republic as early as age 15, just after her first composition submissions, often helping to entertain at parties or similar events. Grace and her mother were even subject to early versions of "who are you wearing" at some events.
Her first march, The Fair, was released by noted publisher Carl Hoffman when Grace was only 14, with two more appearing the following year. There may be a relationship to her discovery and the fact that she might possibly have taken piano from one of the piano teachers in the same building as Hoffman, facilitating knowledge of her compositions. The 1900 Census shows her still at school, so she had not declared herself as a musician or composer, even with compositions in print. Newspaper accounts of the circles Grace ran in clearly indicated that she was being groomed for something different than just a composer of questionably moral music. The family had two domestic servants working for them that year.
Bolen's most famous piece, Smoky Topaz, was published by two former clerks of the Hoffman publishing house in 1901, Charles Daniels (aka Neil Morét) and Albert Russell, who had by then set up shop next door to their former boss. It is a gentle piece that evokes elements of both cakewalks and ragtime, and still frequently played by ragtime artists in the 21st century. When Whitney-Warner bought the Hoffman and Daniels & Russell catalogs in 1903 through Daniels' negotiating the sale of his own Hiawatha, Smoky Topaz was reprinted under the Jerome H. Remick logo. They kept it in their catalog for many years.
As was the case with so many promising women composers, Bolen's work ceased shortly before she was married. Her first marriage was to William M. Louderman of St. Louis on Wednesday, January 7, 1903. In reports of preparations for the event Grace was called "one of Kansas City's most prominent belles, and is considered a beauty." The union, however, did not last very long and ended in either a divorce in late December. Grace got married once again on December 3, 1904, this time to Matthew Charles Smith. While it lasted a little longer, this marriage also failed.
In the early 1910s, she married her third husband, Jay J. Davidson, a Missouri-born lawyer turned newspaper editor who had also been previously married. The couple moved to Lafayette, Louisiana before 1917, where Grace gave birth to their daughter Frances Lorraine Davidson that February. His 1918 draft record indicates that Jay was working for the Press Publishing Company of Lafayette. The family is shown in Layfayette in the 1920 Census with no profession listed for Grace. They were still living there as of the 1930 Census. Jay passed on at age 57 on April 9, 1932 in Lafayette. Grace later moved to Kilgore Texas where she taught piano and voice. Those who knew her affectionately called her "Mama Grace." Never having married again, she passed on at the age of 89 just as the second ragtime revival was gaining ground throughout the world.