Introduction

Biography

Pinfold’s six year old niece once said of her, Aunt An­nie, isn’t a la­dy, ’cause la­dies don’t work, and Aunt An­nie is al­ways work­ing.

That state­ment helps ex­plain why a sprain brought on ser­i­ous spi­nal trou­ble. The doc­tors have told me that I ought to be dead, but I could not see it that way. I tell my friends that the grace of God, grit and gump­tion kept me alive through those two dark years in bed with a par­a­lyzed right arm.

Her first at­tempts at li­ter­ary work were short sto­ries for Sun­day school pub­li­ca­tions. At the re­quest of va­ri­ous com­pos­ers, she un­der­took the writ­ing of hymns for East­er, Child­ren’s Day, Christ­mas, and oth­er spe­cial oc­cas­ions. Her suc­cess was so phe­no­me­nal that she de­vot­ed her tal­ent large­ly to those lines of en­dea­vor.

Though hin­dered both phy­si­cal­ly and fi­nan­cial­ly, she said, I am a ve­ry for­tu­nate wo­man—hap­py in the lit­tle world that is mine. I am thank­ful for the small tal­ent en­trust­ed to me, and while it is and has been of fi­nan­cial val­ue to me, I try to use it as a means to help oth­ers. With pen­cil han­dy (as my me­mo­ry is poor) I can com­bine po­ta­to peel­ing and verse mak­ing, and so glo­ri­fy a some­what com­mon task.

Works

• Two Lit­tle Welsh Girls (El­gin, Il­li­nois: Da­vid C. Cook, 1909)
• How Ne­ro At­tend­ed School