Elise Ayers Sanguinetti was born January 26, 1926 in Anniston, Alabama, the daughter of Harry Mell and Edel (Ytterboe) Ayers. She attended Ashley Hall, a boarding prepartory school in Charleston, South Carolina before attending one year at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota followed by a summer session at the University of Oslo (Norway). She received her A.B. degree from the University of Alabama in 1946. In 1950 she married Phillip A. Sanguinetti, a chemical engineer from Norfolk, Virginia. They lived in Pennsylvania and Missouri before returning to Anniston.
Elise Sanuinetti's father, Harry Mell Ayers, was a very strong influence on her career as a writer. Harry Mell Ayers was the owner, editor and publisher of The Anniston Star, and he held the belief that a newspaper should make an effort to improve the community. He was involved with many of the leading issues of Alabama and the nation and took an active interest in civil rights matters and improving education. Sanguinetti's younger brother, Harry Brandt Ayers was also a newspaperman and eventually became editor of The Anniston Star .
Her literary career has included working as a reporter and feature writer for The Anniston Star, Anniston, Alabama and authoring several novels, including The Last of The Whitfields (1962), The New Girl (1964), The Dowager (1968), and McBee's Station (1971). She is best known for The Last of The Whitfields, which was an expansion of her first published short story, To You, Frere Twig ( Mademoiselle, 1960). She wrote Whitfields while living with her husband in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania during the difficult, early years of the civil rights movement. The New Girl, while not precisely a sequel to Whitfields, it is a look at boarding schools and the trials and tribulations of being the "new girl" as told by Felicia Whitfield, who also narrated the story of The Last of the Whitfields .
From the guide to the Elise Ayers Sanguinetti papers MSS. 0098., 1929-2003, (W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library, The University of Alabama)
