M. HELEN SMITH

(1876-1940)

Helen Smith was born in Newark, N. J. She was graduated from Mt. Holyoke College in 1898 and a few years later became a biology teacher in Manual Training High School, Brooklyn, N. Y.

From childhood she was an out-of-doors enthusiast. During the early years of her teaching she spent her summers with her mother at her camp on a Maine lake. She enjoyed travel and took several trips abroad and in the United States and Canada. She was greatly interested in art and music, and photography became one of her hobbies.

Her mountain climbing began in the Canadian Rockies in 1919 and she became an enthusiastic life member of the Alpine Club of Canada. During the next fourteen years she spent most of her summers in the Rockies, attending camp, taking pack trips and staying at the Club House in Banff. Wherever she went her winning personality, her warm interest in people, her sympathy and loyalty, made many devoted friends for her.

She loved the great snow peaks and everything connected with them—flowers, trees and animals. She did all the climbing, tramping and pack tripping that her strength and purse would permit. Her camera was her constant companion.

For several years she was secretary of the New York section of the A. C. C. She became a member of the American Alpine Club in 1928.

Helen Smith kept her enthusiasm for many activities to an unusual degree. When she retired from her teaching in 1938 she was planning happily for the many things she could do with her greater leisure. But almost immediately her health began to fail and she died in a Brooklyn hospital, January 11th, 1940.

E. P. M.