Early film star Phyllis Haver was born in Douglass, Kansas on January 6, 1899 to James H. and Minnie (Shanks) Haver.  Both the Haver and Shanks families were early pioneers to this area. The family lived on a farm east of Douglass.

While Phyllis was still very young, her parents divorced; she and her mother moved in with her maternal grandmother, a widow named Sarah Shanks.  Phyllis’ father remarried when she was five years old.

Late in 1907, Sarah Shanks sold her farm and moved to Los Angeles, California, along with Minnie and Phyllis.  They had visited California several times previously during the harsh Kansas winters before moving for good.  After several years, Sarah returned to Kansas, but Minnie and her daughter remained in California.

Phyllis attended public schools in Los Angeles, graduating from the Manual Arts High School around 1917.  While in high school, she became close friends with Marie Prevost.  Later they worked together with Mack Sennett, remaining lifelong friends.

Her mother, Minnie, kept a scrapbook of Haver’s personal mementos, including her marriage certificate and specially designed Christmas cards.  This is now in the collection of The Douglass Pioneer Museum.

In California, Minnie met and married L. R. Malone.  The 1920 US Federal census lists Mr. Malone as working for a tractor company.  Phyllis, living with the Malone’s, is already listed as an actress on this census. It is unknown if the Malone’s marriage ended in death or divorce; there is no mention of him in the scrapbook.

Described as a pretty blond with extremely active blue eyes, later magazine writers described Haver as a “picture of health”, “like peaches and cream”, with a smile as “coquettish and charming.”

After having been a part of the film scene for ten years, a reporter wrote that Haver’s name had never once been linked with scandal or gossip.  She once made the comment that she didn’t have time for romance; she was focused on her career and on getting her mother taken care of financially.  Explaining in an interview that she found happiness in discovering her work and sticking to it, she remarked that she wouldn’t make a good wife because she was too interested in herself and her career.

An active person, Haver enjoyed swimming, golfing, and biking.  A short film in 1929, Players at Play, featured a clip of her playing a comic bit of croquet with Marie Prevost.  She was also interested in real estate, making a modest but respectable fortune from this speculative hobby.  She owned several dogs and cats; her Persian cat won a prize at a cat show.

In 1929, at the height of her career, Haver left it all to marry.  She had fallen in love with New York multimillionaire playboy William “Billy” Seeman, the son of a wholesale grocery magnate.  Billy’s friend, Mayor Jimmie Walker, performed the ceremony. It was held in the home of Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Rube Goldberg, who was a brother-in-law of the groom.

Many tried unsuccessfully to lure Haver back into pictures.  Refusing them all, she said, “Frankly I haven’t a remnant of ambition beyond being just Mrs. William Seeman.”  The Seeman’s lived in an eleven-room plus roof penthouse in Greenwich Village, New York.  Trees growing on the roof surrounded a table seating sixteen.  Here, Phyllis also enjoyed gardening.

Unfortunately, the marriage did not last.  Of the reasons behind their 1945 divorce, neither Seeman nor Haver would speak publicly.  It was rumored that Seeman left her for a younger woman; he did marry a younger woman, whom he also divorced.  Seeman’s love of drinking and all-night partying couldn’t have helped.

Haver eventually made a home for herself in Falls Village, Connecticut, where she entertained many friends, including Mr. and Mrs. Rube Goldberg, Randolph Hearst and Gloria Swanson.

On November 19, 1960, a housekeeper found Haver in the bedroom of her Connecticut home, lying quietly in her bed.  She had died in the night from a drug overdose. Police suspected suicide; her aunts in Kansas did not accept this theory.  She was still grieving over the breakup of her marriage, as well as the recent death of Mack Sennett, who had been a father figure to her.  The truth will probably never be known.