MILDRED FAY WARREN WHITEHEAD
05/26/1937 - 11/02/2022
Fay Whitehead will forever be remembered as a strong Texan woman who defied expectations. Faithfully loyal and loving to her children, a tight circle of lifelong friends, along with achieving success in various business ventures, she forged and enjoyed life fully in a manner uniquely Fay. Though petite in stature, Fay never failed to make an indelible impression with her unbridled optimism, quick humor, and vivacious personality accented with a deep Texas twang. A proud lifelong resident of Houston, Fay passed away at age 85 on November 2, 2022, at her home.
She was born in 1937 in Houston during the young city’s initial oil boom that made dreams come true overnight. Howard and Mildred Warren, her parents, moved to the city to pursue that dream from Loveland, Colorado. Howard, a geophysicist and wildcatter, launched a successful petroleum exploration company while making their permanent home in the city’s River Oaks neighborhood. Her parents were very generous to their only child; yet Fay remained rooted in an authentic, down-to-earth approach to life. To offset her lack of siblings, at the age of five, Fay formed an enduring kinship with four neighborhood girls that others collectively referred to as “the Wickersham girls.” The “girls” were Betsy, Francia, Kate and Marianne; and, they became Fay’s de-facto sisters, remaining very close for more than eight decades.
Fay attended the St. John’s School and graduated from Lamar High School in Houston. She later attended Randolph-Macon Women’s College in Virginia before transferring to the University of Texas in Austin, where she was a member of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts.
Fay was always in motion and engaged in unique interests from early childhood to adulthood. She enjoyed joiningthe neighborhood boys in their flag football games. At a time when it was unheard of a woman to ride motorcycles, Fay, as a teenager, rode her beloved Cushman scooter all over the city. Later in life, she was an avid sports fan and played competitive tennis at the city and country clublevel. She was a member of the River Oaks Country Club.
In 1960, Fay married Merrill Whitehead, Jr. and together they had three children. The marriage ended in divorce in 1982. Years later, Fay was blessed to find love again in the form of a junior high school sweetheart, Sterling Ross Miller. Fay and Sterling became inseparable for the next twenty years, sharing passions for all things Texas, business, sports, and romance until his passing in 2013.
Fay lived by a credo of the possibility anchored in the pragmatic. One of her favorite catchphrases, “I like to count my chickens before they hatch and even when they don’t!” reflects such spirit.
This mindset is what made Fay successful in her greatest passion: business. Initially, her enthusiasm was inspired by her summer internships as a stock market bulletin board operator. When newly divorced with three children to support, Fay discovered a true knack in real estate, spending the next twenty years as a successful agent with George Murray & Associates. In 1997, she left the real estate field to follow in her late father’s footsteps and transitioned to pursuits in oil and gas ventures in which she remained active until 2018.
When not involved with family and business, she contributed toward numerous local charitable causes. No better testament of this than her milestone achievement ofher twenty years of service as an active volunteer member of The Blue Bird Circle, a 100-year-old charitable organization dedicated to helping children with neurological disorders that at the time was affiliated with Houston Methodist Hospital. She was a member of St. Luke’s United Methodist Church.
Fay was preceded in death by her parents, Howard Cutler Warren and Mildred Romans Warren, and her sister, Sarah (who passed in infancy). Survivors include her son, Howard Warren Whitehead and partner
Barry of Arlington, Virginia.; her son, Merrill “Sonny” Whitehead, III and wife Lisa of Houston; her daughter, Amanda Blake Whitehead Johnson; and grandchildren, Ford Cutler Johnson; Ava Blake Johnson, and Graham Milton Johnson, all of Houston and several cousins of Colorado.
The family extends their gratitude to the Family Tree Home Health agency especially to Belinda, Mina, and Donna and special appreciation to Victoria Zavaleta for her kind service provided to Fay these last two years.
At Fay’s wishes, a private, family only graveside ceremony conducted by Chaplain Patricia Weir was held at Forest Glenn Cemetery Westheimer in Houston on November 19, 2022. The family kindly requests that any memorial donations be made to The Blue Bird Circle at www.thebluebirdcircle.com