Sanford, Winifred M., 1890-

Born in Duluth, Minnesota on March 16, 1890 to Henry S. Mahon and Helen Brooks Mahon, Winifred Mahon Sanford enjoyed a brief but noteworthy literary career from 1925 to 1931. Her 15 short stories appeared popular magazines of the day such the American Mercury and the Woman’s Home Companion . She has been called an “unjustly forgotten” Texas author whose work realistically captures the social transition in post-World War I Texas brought about by the oil boom.

Educated for a year at Mt. Holyoke College in Massachusetts (1909), she received a degree in English from the University of Michigan in 1913. Before marrying law student and naval officer Wayland H. Sanford in 1917, Winifred Mahon taught high school in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan and in Idaho, then worked as a librarian in New York City. In 1920, the Sanford’s first daughter, Emerett, was born in Duluth. Soon after that, Winifred Sanford followed her husband to Wichita Falls, Texas, where he had found employment as an oil and gas attorney. Their second daughter, Helen, was born in their new home in 1922.

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