Gertrude Sanford Legendre

Gertrude Sanford Legendre (March 29, 1902 – March 8, 2000) was an American socialite who served with the Office of Strategic Services, the American spy agency, during World War II. She was also an explorer, big-game hunter, environmentalist, and owner of Medway plantation in South Carolina. Early life Born in Aiken, South Carolina, she was the daughter of New York rug magnate and member of the United States House of Representatives from New York's 20th congressional district, John Sanford (1851), and Ethel Sanford. Her paternal grandparents were Sarah Jane Cochran Sanford (1830–1901) and Stephen Sanford (1826–1913), an American businessman and president of Sanford and Sons Carpet Company, who also served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from New York's 18th congressional district. Her maternal grandparents were Gertrude Ellen Dupuy Sanford and Henry Shelton Sanford, a diplomat appointed by Abraham Lincoln and the founder of Sanford, Florida. Her parents were second cousins; their grandfathers were brothers. Gertrude was the youngest of three children, and she, her brother Stephen Sanford – an internationally recognized polo player known as Laddie – and her sister Sarah Jane Sanford were said to have been the inspiration for Philip Barry's 1928 play Holiday. The play was made into a 1930 film, starring Ann Harding, Mary Astor, and Robert Ames, and a 1938 film, starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. Gertrude, who always went by the nickname Gertie, was reared in Amsterdam, New York and in a Manhattan townhouse on East 72nd Street, half a block from Central Park. She was educated at Foxcroft School in Middleburg, Virginia and made her society debut after graduating in 1920.