Messages

A thoroughly interesting story of how you dug up all that useful information! -- I was really glad to know, so thank you for posting the specifics.  She is very hard to track down, because her name is not unusual, so all this information is exciting to have.

Apart from my interest in Ruth Smith as a writer and educator, I am interested in her as a rather adventurous woman born early in the 20th century.  She was born only a year before my grandmother, so it is intriguing to compare their different decisions.

Audrey

I had never heard of dump cake before, and I'm curious -- when did this kind of cake become popular?  Was it a 50s or 60s invention, maybe?  Or maybe it is recent and just passed me by.  I looked it up on the web, and there are lots of recipes for it, but no one says when it got started.  It reminds me a little of "wacky" cake in terms of how everything is dumped in one pan.

Audrey

Thank you, Jo -- I will look forward to speaking with both of them, then!

Yesterday I received the obituary for Ruth Smith in the mail.  I have typed out the information and am including it below.  All of you have been so generous in finding information about her for me, and I am delighted to give you some in return.  I think it was W. Gray who had found out for me (I don't know how!) that she died in Prescott in Nov. 1986 -- thank you!  That was invaluable information and made it possible for me to ask a public archivist in AZ to track the obituary down for me.

Hope you all find this as fascinating as I did!

Audrey

   Ruth Hays Smith, 83, died Saturday, Nov. 8, in Prescott.  Born Jan. 4, 1903, in Howard, Kan., she was the daughter of George and Jane Hays Smith.
   She attended public schools in Howard and graduated from Howard High School in 1920.  She then attended the College of Emporia and graduated with honors in 1924.
   After teaching for a year at Howard, she taught for two years at Barber College, a Presbyterian Mission School for black girls in Anniston, Ala.  She spent the next year at Columbia University in New York City and received her master's degree in English.  For the next two years, she taught at Spelman College in Atlanta.
   She worked as a secretary for the dean of students at Columbia University and as an assistant to a professor there.  She taught at the New York State Women's Prison at Westfield Farm in Bedford Hills, N.Y., and also worked with Pearl Buck and the East-West Foundation and for the American Friends Services Committee.
   She spent one summer writing at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, N.H.
   As a writer, she helped write and edit several books, including "The Tree of Life" published by Viking Press, which was the result of her work with Robert Ballou on "The Bible of the World."  Her book "White Man's Burden," published by Vanguard Press, recounted her teaching experiences at Barber College.
   From 1954–58, she taught at Green Mountain Junior College in Poultney, Vt.  She also taught at Baldwin School in Haverford, Pa., and at the Haverford Friends' meeting.  She was active in AFSC until her retirement in March 1968.
   In 1976, she moved to Columbia, Mo., and settled in Prescott with relatives in 1977.
   She is survived by her sister, Josephine Smith Kerr of Prescott;  a niece, Rebecca J. Brown of Baldwin City, Kan.;  three first-cousins, Mildred Frost Fowler of Omaha, Neb., Maurita Hays Anderson of McPherson, Kan., and Edward D. Hays of Los Angeles;  and several other relatives.
   Services and burial will be in Howard.  Memory Chapel Mortuary handled local arrangements.

Terrific -- thank you so much, Teresa!

Audrey

Once again, many thanks to all of you!  I would love to contact these folks if you think they would be comfortable with a phone call.  I am also very tempted to visit, but I doubt that it would be before some months, at the earliest -- I appreciate the advice on how to get there, though, in case I can make plans in advance.  If you have a # where I could reach either Agnes Miller or Elwood Miller (are they related?), could you send me the information at the following email?

Thompson@pauahtun.org

Thank you so much!  It would be great to talk with folks who knew Ruth Smith.

Best, Audrey

Could you give me a snail mail address at which to write to her, given that she has hearing limitations?

My email is Thompson@pauahtun.org if you wouldn't mind sending me any information about how to contact her.  I am also happy to call, if she can talk on the phone if I talk loud.

Thank you so much!

Audrey

When I spoke with Margaret Gragg, she had not heard of Ruth Smith.  I would love to speak with or write to Hazel Moore and Agnes Moore -- does anyone know whether they might be willing for me to contact them (by letter, email, or phone)?

Audrey

W. Gray -- I do think that she is the author of both, but you are right that it is hard to know for sure.  I love your detection work in making the connection to her sister!  It is clear from White Man's Burden that she is a very religious woman open to learning from many others, so I was not surprised to see that she had (probably) edited Tree of Life (which I had not realized until your earlier post -- thank you!).  My husband found me a signed copy of The Tree of Life -- it is inscribed to "Evelyn," but there is no indication who Evelyn might be.

I did contact someone at the Howard library and also the chair of the Benson Historical Museum, but neither had ever heard of Ruth Smith, so it is thrilling to me that there are folks on the forum who knew her or knew of her and others who are so helpful in tracking down all these details.  Thank you!

Audrey

Dear Carl and others,

I am thrilled to have all these further details, and the map!  Thank you so much.  Is the Smith house still standing?  Is the one-room library still there?  I would love to see a picture of them if anyone has one.

Ruth Smith taught at a school for young black women in the south, and she accepted segregation with them, so that she rode in the black train car and otherwise refused to accept white privileges.  For this and other reasons she was seen as a race traitor in the south, so probably that is what your father was referring to when he said that "she had 'more guts than good sense' to do what she did in the South."

I live in Utah but my parents still live in central Illinois, where I'm from, so maybe one of these days I'll take a road trip through Howard.  It would be great to see where Ruth Smith is from.  If I were to fly in, what would be the nearest airport?

I got to wondering today whether anyone might have an old yearbook from grade school or high school or college that Ruth Smith would be featured in.  Would the Howard library have copies of yearbooks?  I keep meaning to call them, but my timing is always off.  Anyway, if anyone has a yearbook with Ruth Smith's picture in it, I would love to know about it!

One more thing -- Carl, when you say that "it was the biggest literary event ever in Howard," do you (or others) remember any specifics about celebrations or conversations or newspaper coverage?

Thanks again, so much, to everyone for all this information.  I feel very lucky, as I don't know any other way that I would have gotten anything like this detail!  Best, Audrey

Oh my goodness -- thank you all!  I kept checking the web page for the forum, and it always said "0 replies," so I didn't check further.  Today, somehow, I thought to probe further, and found all these wonderful replies.  (I have never used a forum before, so I probably just didn't know how to negotiate it properly.)  Thank you so much!

Other folks have already provided information about the book itself, so I will just add what it was that drew me to want to know more.  Ruth Smith has such a sense of place, such a distinctive voice, and she was so thoughtful about the ways in which she (and many of us;  I am white and teach teachers about race relations) have learned to think (or not think) about race.  Other whites were writing about race in interesting ways in 1946, but not too many teachers were.  I liked how she could see things in such complex ways, and how she focused not on just understanding things consciously but responding to them in heartfelt ways.  And it sounded like both her church and her sense of belonging in Howard were a vital part of how she understood her place in the world, so I really want to know more about where she was from, how she lived the rest of her life, and if she ever wrote more.

I am in awe of all the details you were able to furnish me with -- thank you, thank you!  If anyone has more information or insights, I would love to hear more -- and will try to familiarize myself better with the forum so that I don't miss any replies.

Best, Audrey Thompson