Mary Barbour Sanko, a former New Jersey resident who served as executive secretary to Texas Gov. Coke Stevenson from 1941 to 1948 and was a witness to history, died on July 2. She was 101.
Sanko began working for Stevenson in 1941 when he was serving as Texas’ lieutenant governor.
Stevenson became governor in 1941 after Pappy O’Daniel resigned to take a seat in the U.S. Senate. O’Daniel had defeated Rep. Lyndon B. Johnson by 1,311 in an election marked by allegations of voter fraud.
Stevenson brought Sanka to the governor’s office with him. She remained as the gatekeeper to the governor after Stevenson won a 1942 special election and a 1944 election for a full four-year term.
In 1948, Stevenson and Johnson faced off in a race for U.S. Senate after O’Daniel declined to seek re-election. Stevenson led Johnson in the Democratic primary by a 40%-34% margin in a field of eleven candidates.
Johnson won the runoff by 87 votes in an election that many believe was stolen from Stevenson. The race was covered in much detail in Robert Caro’s second LBJ book, Means of Ascent.
After Stevenson left office in early 1949, Sanko moved from Austin to New York City where she took a job working as the secretary to a Texaco executive. She met her future husband, Ted, a World War II Air Force veteran, while volunteering at a USO dance and married in 1950. They had six children in seven years.
While Ted Sanko was working as a construction engineer on the McGraw-Hill Building in Manhattan, his family lived in Bergen County for several years.
Later, the Sanko family moved to Connecticut, and she worked as executive secretary to the manager of the Sears and Roebuck store in West Hartford.
Predeceased by her husband in 1993, Sanko is survived by her six children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.