Stafford, Clayton

BIOGRAPHY

Clayton I. Stafford was born September 17, 1903 in Albany, New York and died in June of 1981 in Los Altos, California. He studied engineering in college and, after a brief tour in the Navy in the 1920s, joined the Pacific Company in 1930. He served in WWII in the Army from 1942 to 1946 working on radio research and development. During his life Stafford lived mainly in the San Francisco area and was married three times to Jean Adams, Adelaide Fairbanks Ellsworth, and Ruth Homer . His last wife, Ruth, survived him, and is responsible for the selection and donation of the collection, as well as the many notes throughout.

Clayton Stafford is primarily remembered as a writer and poet from the 1950s and 1960s. He published several works in periodicals and a book of poetry, The Swan and the Eagle, in 1968 (collection includes TMS). He was a close friend and contemporary of such notable writers as Howard Baker, J.V. Cunningham, Janet Lewis, and Yvor Winters. The collection includes some of Stafford's correspondence, as well as works by these and other writers. Stafford was also an avid book collector, gardener, and researcher and kept many notebooks on these subjects, which are included in the collection. Stafford's autobiography, Fragments of an Autobiography, was published posthumously in 1983 (collection includes TMS).