Winifred Sweet was born in 1863 to a Civil War general. She grew up on a farm on the outskirts of Chicago, attending private schools in the city. She grew into a great beauty, with blond curls, a curvaceous figure and a captivating smile.  After a brief attempt at acting in New York City, Sweet turned her attention to journalism, getting a job at the Chicago Tribune. In 1890, after traveling west to hunt down a younger brother who had run away, Sweet managed to get a job with Randolph Hearst’s new newspaper, the San Francisco Examiner^[1]. Her first story, about corner flower shops, had to be completely rewritten because Hearst, and his audience, were looking for sensation. For her next story, Sweet dressed in threadbare clothes and pretended to faint on a City street. After being nudged with clubs by local police, she was thrown onto the wood covered floor of a police wagon and transported to a hospital where she was diagnosed as “hysterical” and physically abused by hospital staff. Doctors first tried to give her an emetic of mustard and hot water. When she fought having the concoction forced down her throat, she complained that her head hurt. One of the attending doctors grabbed her by the neck and forced his fingers up under her ears. As she pushed him away, he grabbed her shoulder with such force that he tore her skin. Her story was front page news less than 36 hours later. As a result of the outrage her story generated, an ambulance service was immediately created, and an emergency hospital system was eventually established. The doctor in question was interviewed by another journalist and was quoted as saying that all hysterical women faked their symptoms and needed either an emetic or a good thrashing – “any treatment to give them something else to think about.” He was promptly fired.

In 1891, Sweet married Orlow Black, a fellow journalist at the Examiner. They had a son who died young in a drowning accident. In 1892 Sweet would cover the Harry Thaw murder trial along with several other female reporters. Thaw was an architect who shot and killed Stanford White in a restaurant atop New York City’s Madison Square Garden over White’s relationship with Thaw’s wife. Sweet’s sympathetic coverage under the pen name Annie Laurie (which she would use for the remainder of her career) of Thaw’s wife and star witness, Evelyn Nesbit, was full of flowery language and heart wrenching quotes. She and the other female reporters covering the case were dubbed “the sob sisters”, a term which eventually grew to mean female reporters who wrote human interest stories.  

In 1895 Sweet moved to New York to work for Hearst’s competitor, the New York Journal.  After divorcing Black in 1897 she moved to Denver, Colorado to work for the Denver Post. She continued to provide stories for the Examiner, including exposes on Mormon polygamy and the juvenile court system in Chicago. For a story in 1900, Sweet eluded police barriers to become the first journalist to witness the aftermath of the Galveston hurricane and flood. With funds raised through Hearst’s papers, Sweet opened a temporary hospital. In 1906 she returned to San Francisco to report on the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake and fires^[2]. She later secured an exclusive interview with President Benjamin Harrison by getting smuggled aboard the President’s train with the help of California governor Henry Markham. 

Upon returning from a trip to Europe to report on World War I, Sweet married Charles Alden Bonfils, brother of the co-publisher of the Denver paper she worked for. Sweet and Bonfils moved to San Francisco in the 1920s and moved to 37 Florence on Russian Hill^[2A]. They would have two children: a daughter and a son who also died in childhood. Sweet went back to writing for the Examiner, becoming a reporter, telegraph editor, Sunday Editor, Assistant City Editor, and special writer. Her career would span a total of 50 years. She eventually divorced Bonfils and settled in the Marina District.  Although Sweet was nearly blind and confined to her bed with diabetes, she dictated some nine articles a week for Hearst until her death. She is credited for saving the corner flower stands, and the Palace of Fine Arts^[3]. Sweet died on May 25, 1936 at the age of 73. Mayor Angelo Rossi had her body lie in state in the Rotunda of City Hall, the only journalist in San Francisco to ever be so honored. She was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma. 

^[1] San Francisco Examiner: see story coming June 6^th

^[2] 1906 Earthquake and Fires: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=2849 

^[3] Palace of Fine Arts: see story coming February 20^th