Mrs. Sarah A. Faber: From Carlisle to Constantinople

When Sarah Filey was growing up in rural Cumberland County in the 1830s and 1840s, she could not have imagined that ten years of her life would be spent more than 5,000 miles away in Constantinople, Turkey.

Sarah married Prussian-born Lewis Faber, and by 1860 they were living in North Middleton Township with their two-year old son, Frank. In 1868, Faber leased the Cumberland Valley Hotel on the corner of East High and Bedford streets in Carlisle, and Sarah and the children spent the next several years there.

Her husband sold the contents of the hotel in March 1871 with the prospect of taking a lease on the Big Spring Hotel in Newville. There are no records to indicate what happened to Lewis Faber, but the family moved to Philadelphia, and when the 1880 U. S. Census was taken, Sarah was the head of the household and earning a living as a dressmaker. Sarah’s eldest son, Frank, had graduated from the Philadelphia Dental College in 1879 and was living at home. Her younger son, Charles was a student at the dental college, and her daughter Mary Ellen, aged 19, was single.

It was her sons chosen professions that would take Sarah to far flung places. Sarah’s son Frank specialized in dental prosthetics and operated a laboratory in Philadelphia. In 1885, he set sail for Alexandria, Egypt where he would practice dentistry with Dr. James F. Love for four years.¹ Sarah’s other son, Charles, who had graduated from the Dental College in 1883, went to San Francisco to practice dentistry.

Sarah was 58 years old when she applied for a passport in April 1891. Although a photograph of her was not attached to her application, it described her as 5’ 4” tall, with grey hair, brown eyes, a dark complexion with a small mouth and a pointed chin.² The April 30, 1891 edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper reported that Sarah’s son, Dr. Frank R. Faber, had left the United States for the Orient six years earlier, and after practicing dentistry in Egypt for four years had permanently located in Constantinople. It also reported that Sarah would make a “short sojourn in London and if she likes Constantinople will remain there at least two years.”

By 1894, both of Sarah’s sons had prominent positions outside of the United States. Her son Frank was the official dentist to the Turkish ruler, Sultan Abdul Hamid II, and Charles was dentist to Queen Natalie of Serbia.³

With her son’s position at the Sultan’s court, Sarah undoubtedly enjoyed life in such a cosmopolitan and exotic city. She stayed for ten years. When she returned in 1902, it was not to Philadelphia, but to “old Carlisle,” where she took up residence at 138 North Hanover Street.⁴ Friends and family were still in the area, and she likely entertained them often with stories about life in far-away places.

In 1905, Sarah’s son Dr. Charles, who had been practicing in Cairo, returned from Egypt and visited his mother in Carlisle accompanied by his nephew Thomas Suffall of Philadelphia.⁵ On June 23, 1906, Dr. Charles died of tuberculosis at his sister’s home in Philadelphia. He was 42 years old. His body was returned to Carlisle. Although his mother was very ill at the time, the funeral was held at her home. He was buried in Ashland Cemetery.⁶

Two weeks later, on July 10, Sarah died. Lengthy obituaries in several Carlisle newspapers give details of her life. The funeral was held at her home on North Hanover Street. Rev. Harry B. Stock conducted the service. Her pall bearers were A. W. Sipe, H. G. Beetem, Samuel Brenneman, Harry Humrich, her grandson Thomas Suffall, and photographer A. Allen Line. She was buried in Ashland Cemetery.⁷