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'She was almost a perfect person'

That's how her sister described a woman known for helping her adopted city and its residents.

By MARTY CLEAR
Published October 6, 2006

BAYSHORE BEAUTIFUL - Grail Hanford was a woman of strong convictions, who wasn't afraid to call politicians and let them know what she thought of them.

But at heart, she was an old-fashioned gentlewoman with a generous spirit and passion for people and the arts.

"She had her moral and political convictions, but she was very refined and very generous," said her sister, Agnes Rutledge Hanford. "She was an almost perfect person."

Miss Hanford was well-known in Tampa society but had friends all over the country. She died of cancer Sept. 23. She was 74.

"When she was sick, this place was alive with cards and calls," said her sister, who shared a Bayshore Boulevard condominium with her. "She always made friends, and they remained her friends. Even her good friends from high school were her good friends for the rest of her life."

Miss Hanford, who was named for the Holy Grail, was born and raised on Long Island. She developed a love of the symphony at an early age and delighted in monthly trips to see children's concerts by the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Leopold Stokowski.

Her sister, who was five years older, recalls a dinner conversation in the Hanford home from those years. Gloria Vanderbilt, a very young woman, had recently married Stokowski, who was elderly. The adults at the table wondered why Vanderbilt would have married an old man.

"I know why she married him," the 11-year-old Miss Hanford said. "Because Mr. Stokowksi is wonderful!"

Miss Hanford studied government and English at Smith College and later worked as a copy editor with the American Legion magazine. She spent most of her career with the magazine, first in New York and then in Washington, D.C., and Indianapolis. She retired as senior editor after 22 years.

By the late 1980s, Miss Hanford had started a company called Writers for Business that supplied writing services for corporations. Her sister, a stockbroker by profession, had moved to Tampa a few years before. The sisters decided to buy a condo together, and Miss Hanford moved her company to Tampa.

She didn't pursue the business too actively in Tampa, her sister said, choosing instead to travel extensively and collect art. Their home has original works by James Whistler, folk artists and contemporary Florida painters, along with elegant portraits of their mother and aunt.

Miss Hanford stayed busy with committee work, serving on the Hillsborough County Republican Executive Committee and the USF Contemporary Art Museum advisory committee, among others.

"She was also very generous with her money," her sister said. "She preferred to give it to individuals who could use it. That was the way she would put it. She wouldn't say they were poor, just that they were people who could use the money."

The sisters were close all their lives but grew even closer after Miss Hanford moved to Tampa.

"We were very close, very affectionate," Agnes Rutledge Hanford said. "The night before she died, I went into her room with two Waterford glasses of bourbon. She had a little and I had a little - I had a little more than she did - and we toasted each other."

[Last modified October 5, 2006, 07:11:23]