looking for information on the author, Ruth Smith

[Audrey.Thompson]

When I recently read White Man's Burden:  A Personal Testament, by Ruth Smith (1946), I was very touched by her voice, and wanted to find out more about her.  It is difficult to find much information, though, and I wondered if she still had friends or relatives living in Howard or the vicinity?  I would love to know more about her.  If anyone could put me in touch with folks, I would love to have a conversation with them.

Audrey Thompson

[W. Gray]

I have not heard of the name nor the book.

Can you provide more information about the theme of the book and what you know about her from reading the book?

[Diane Amberg]

Is she responding to the controversial Kipling poem?

[W. Gray]

Looks like we might have lost Audrey.

[Jody]

I remember the name Ruth Smith.   I think she was related to some one at the Presbyterian Church.

[Jo McDonald]

Reola Reid may know who this lady is.

[W. Gray]

I took the liberty of obtaining a copy of White Man's Burden, a Personal Testament by Ruth Smith.

It is a small 5x8 book of 220 pages published in 1946 by Vanguard Press in New York and Copp Clark, Ltd. in Canada. The inside hard cover shows a $2 price levied by the publisher.

The title and content explains the "Rudyard Kipling connection."

I am wondering if the Howard Library has a copy.

I have not yet read the book past the first chapter. The first chapter is titled:

TO THE PEOPLE OF HOWARD, KANSAS.

That first chapter is a recollection of her youth and she speaks in broad general terms rather than specific areas of Howard. I was hoping she would have mentioned Fred Flory or Tom Thompson but she does not mention any names. She talks of immense trees down Main Street, traveling shows that came through town, the Soldiers Monument at the cemetery, upbringing, church, etc. She says that most people in Howard had never seen a Negro. She also speaks of the Mexicans in town working for the railroad who did not speak English. (I have always heard that Mexicans lived a rather squalid existence in boxcars along the tracks near the depot.)

It sounds like she might have been in her sixties when the book was published.

Synopsis from the book cover:

Hate engenders hate; understanding makes for understanding—and Ruth Smith, compassionate and clear-sighted, recognizes that it is understanding that must weave the strands of Negro and white relationships into a pattern for our society.

It was a chance meeting with a young woman of exceptional intelligence, beauty, and charm that was in part responsible for the path Miss Smith trod—that woman was a Negro. This path led the author down strange ways that were not without danger, for Ruth Smith realized her own life must be lived in a fashion compatible with her integrity if not with society. She became a teacher at a Negro school for girls in the South when the Ku Klux Klan was at the height of its sinister power; she identified herself with the Negro community and defiantly took her place in the "Jim Crow" sections of streetcars and buses. But her experiences have left Miss Smith utterly without bitterness; she could condemn but chooses rather to understand. It is the cruelty, and the men responsible for the cruelty, that Miss Smith abhors.

Born in Kansas, near the emotional pulse and geographic center of this country, bearing the most American of all names and brought up a firm and devout believer in the American Dream, Ruth Smith is—to paraphrase the anti-Americans—"blonde Nordic white, Gentile, Protestant, native-born"--and this is her testament, not of hate but of love for all humankind.

In the last chapter she has returned to Howard.

[Bonnie M.]

Very interesting!

[W. Gray]

Attached is a photo of Ruth Smith in 1946.

I missed her age by a few years. She was 43 years old at the time.

Ruth Smith was born in Howard on January 4, 1903, to George and Jane Smith. George Smith was the Smith part of the Smith and Goodwin department store.

George belonged to the Presbyterian Church. That church was on north Pine Street and burned in the late 1930s. I am not sure but the brown brick church on north Pine might be on the same property.

In her book, she mentions her church ran a college in a town of 12,000 close to Howard. She does not mention her church name nor does she mention the name of the college town. That seems to me to be Winfield but Southwestern College is a Methodist run school. Maybe she switched churches.

Besides White Man's Burden a Personal Testament published in 1946, she published The Tree of Life in 1966. This book is available on EBay and Alibris.

As of 1977, Ruth Smith was living in Prescott Arizona. She apparently never married. A sister, Josephine, was born in 1911 in Howard and moved to Prescott with her husband.

[Jody]

Her church was the Presbyterian Church.   The school was tHE COLLEGE OF EMPORIA.  Tom Thompson ad fred Flory were  members also.