Winifred Sanford

Winifred Balch Mahon Sanford (March 16, 1890 - March 24, 1983) was an American writer, best known for her short stories which often focused on the oil industry. She was published in Woman's Home Companion, North American Review and The American Mercury during the 1920s and 1930s. Sanford's writing has been valued for its literary merit and also for her critical view of Texas culture changing and adapting to the oil industry.

Sanford was born in Duluth, Minnesota to an educated family. She attended Duluth Central High School, where she graduated in 1907. She attended Mount Holyoke College for only a year before she went on to the University of Michigan. Sanford received a major in English from the University of Michigan in 1913. She taught English for four years in Michigan and Idaho high schools.

Sanford and her future husband, Wayland Hall Sanford, attended the same high school and both went to the University of Michigan. They were married in 1917. Wayland Sanford went on to Texas to find work as a lawyer in the oil and gas industry.

Sanford's first daughter, Emerett, was born in Duluth on January 28, 1920 and she followed her husband to Texas when Emerett was eight months old, to the place he had settled in at Wichita Falls . Sanford's second daughter, Helen, was born in Texas on January 24, 1922. That year, Sanford also joined the Wichita Fall's literary group, called The Manuscript Club. Most of her short fiction was written while she was a member of this club.

In 1925, Sanford's first work, "Wreck," was published by H.L. Mencken in 1925. Mencken was an "unabashed fan of her fiction." He also called her "one of the coming writers of America." Mencken's friendship with Sanford took the form of "friendly correspondence" and went on until he resigned as an editor in the early 1930s. During these correspondences, Mencken encouraged her work and her writing. In 1926, Sanford was the only Texas writer to be included in The Best American Short Stories collection by Edward J. O'Brien. Four of her stories were included.

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