Winifred Bonfils

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Winifred Bonfils
Bonfils in 1913
Born
Winifred Sweet

(1863-10-14)October 14, 1863
Chilton, Wisconsin, U.S.
DiedMay 25, 1936(1936-05-25) (aged 72)
San Francisco, California, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Other names
  • Annie Laurie
  • Winifred Black
OccupationJournalist

Winifred Sweet Black Bonfils (October 14, 1863,

San Francisco, California) was an American reporter and columnist,[1] under the pen name Annie Laurie, a reference to her mother's favorite lullaby.[2] She also wrote under the name Winifred Black.[3]

Career

Bonfils, as Winifred Black and as Annie Laurie, wrote celebrity and sensational articles, the kind sought after by

sob sisters", a label given female reporters who wrote human interest stories. Her stories often contained baseless statistics and lurid headlines especially with regard to drug use.[4]
Her first husband was Orlow Black, and her second was publisher Charles Bonfils.

After writing to the

Molokai, Hawaii, in 1892. She raised funds for founding several charities. She investigated the public hospitals in San Francisco and those inaugurating many reforms. She helped found Junior Republic for Boys in New York. She conducted California Children's Excursion to World's Fair in Chicago. She managed hospitals and relief work for Galveston flood victims. She organized and managed the national and international fight against narcotic evil.[5]

She is famous for staging a fainting on the street to test emergency services in San Francisco, a form of

Galveston hurricane of 1900
. She delivered an exclusive and Hearst sent relief supplies by train.

She covered the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and had a front row seat at the murder trial of Harry Thaw in 1907. Her coverage of the trial and descriptions of Thaw's wife Evelyn Nesbit earned her the label of "sob sister".[6]

She reported from Europe during the First World War, later becoming a columnist.

She wrote a biography of Phoebe Apperson Hearst, The Life and Personality of Phoebe Apperson Hearst.[5]

The name "Annie Laurie" was a tribute to her contemporary Nellie Bly.

She was the author of "The Little Boy Who Lived on the Hill" (1895), about her son who drowned at Carmel in 1926, and "Roses and Rain".[5]

Life

Born Winifred Sweet in Chilton, Wisconsin,[7] she was the daughter of Civil War General Benjamin Sweet and Lovisa Denslow,[7][5] and the sister of Ada Celeste Sweet, who held the first position as disbursing officer ever given to a woman by the US government.

Winifred grew up on a farm in

Denver, Colorado.[9] In the late 1920s she was back to California, living at 37 Florence St., San Francisco, California, and married to Charles A. Bonfils. They had two children, Winifred Bonfils Barker, who married C. O. Barker, and Eugene Napoleon Bonfils, who died young.[5]

Death

On the night of May 25, 1936,[10] Bonfils died. The announcement in The San Bernardino Daily Sun reported:

To the moment of her death she insisted she was neither a "sob sister nor a special writer".

"I'm just a plain, practical all-around newspaper woman," said the white-haired 73-year-old woman who began and ended her career in writing for the W. R. Hearst newspapers.

"I'd rather smell the printers' ink and hear the presses go 'round than go to any grand opera in the world," she once said.[11]

Her funeral was a civic ceremony in San Francisco, with her body lying in state in the City Hall. She was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma, California.[7]

References

  1. ^ "Press: Annie Laurie". 28 October 1935. Archived from the original on September 30, 2007. Retrieved 31 August 2017 – via www.time.com.
  2. ISBN 9780674627345
    . Retrieved 31 August 2017 – via Internet Archive. winifred sweet actress annie laurie.
  3. Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  4. ISBN 978-0-252-09723-2
    .
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Binheim, Max; Elvin, Charles A (1928). Women of the West; a series of biographical sketches of living eminent women in the eleven western states of the United States of America. p. 25. Retrieved 8 August 2017.Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  6. ISBN 0-385-12733-2
    . The Greatest Sob Sister of Them All
  7. ^
    Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  8. ^ "'Annie Laurie' Sues," San Francisco Chronicle, September 14, 1897, page 14 Library card required
  9. ^ "Winifred Sweet Black – American journalist". Retrieved 31 August 2017.
  10. ^ United Press, no headline, Madera Daily Tribune and Madera Mercury, Madera, California, Tuesday 26 May 1936, Volume LXVIII, Number 22, page 1.
  11. ^ United Press, "'Annie Laurie' Dies At Bay City Home", The San Bernardino Daily Sun, San Bernardino, California, Tuesday 26 May 1936, Volume 42, page 2.

External links

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