Quoting from the Arcadian Press sheet notes: "May Aufderheide was one of the most successful of the women ragtime composers. She was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on May 21, 1888. She studied classical music and was a popular pianist in her home town area. She loved popular music and, in addition to playing rags, started to compose her own. Her first published composition, "Dusty Rag" (1908), was a hit and is considered the first major rag from the Indianapolis - Ohio Valley. "Dusty Rag" was so successful that her father started his own music publishing company. In the following four years J.H. Aufderheide Music Publishing Company published 18 other compositions by May Aufderheide. She married Thomas M. Kaufmann in 1908 who joined her father's primary business, a loan company. She seemed to have stopped composing and publishing somewhere around 1915. They had one son and, in 1947, moved to Southern California. May Aufderheide died in Pasadena, California on September 1, 1972.

Further reading:
Ragtime (Modern Library), by David A. Jasen and Trebor Jay Tichenor (New York: Seabury Press, 1978)
Women Composers of Ragtime, by Carolynn A. Lindemann Theodor Presser Company, 1985)

 
Websites:

May Aufderheide

Biography and list of works by "Perfessor" Bill Edwards