KLEMME BOOK

Kathryn Guelff Smith

1919 - 2007



Kathryn Guelff Smith died at Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Fontana on May 20, 2007. Her daughter was at her side. She was born in Fairfield, Iowa on August 6, 1919. The third of four children, she lost her father at the age of two and was brought up both by her own widowed mother and by her foster parents, the Maycocks, who were distantly related to her family. Putting herself through school, she was a graduate of Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa. She began her teaching career in Nebraska, and moved to California during World War II. She chose Lincoln School in Pomona from several positions offered because of the city's proximity to and view of the mountains. In those first years of teaching at Lincoln, she aided the war effort by also working in a tire factory. She married in 1957, and her daughter was born in 1959. She divorced in 1982. During the 1960s she developed, with local artists and other educators, the Creative Workshop, a summer enrichment program for children, and offered it through the Upland Department of Recreation. She was also a founder of the nursery school program at Upland First Presbyterian Church where she was, until recently, an active member. She returned to teaching several years after her daughter entered school, and was often the sole support of her family. Her retirement in 1985 from Central School in Rancho Cucamonga did not, however, lead to leisure: She was in demand as a substitute teacher in Upland, Central and Rancho Cucamonga school districts, and continued to teach until the age of 80. Except for a brief residence in Miami, Florida, she lived in the Upland area for more than 60 years. Among her many interests were hiking in the local mountains, and sewing, and she enjoyed working outside in the garden. An undaunted traveler, she crossed the English Channel in the aftermath of a hurricane and visited Manhattan during the blizzard of 1947. A trip to Hawaii, fulfilling a desire to visit the site of the attack on Pearl Harbor, was otherwise calm. She survived a train wreck, polio (contracted during the last such epidemic to sweep southern California), and the El Nino of 1968-69 when her home in Alta Loma was often isolated by flood waters and washed-out roads. An avid baseball enthusiast, she was a long-time and devoted fan of the Angels. On her way to a game at Angels Stadium on May 20th, she was suddenly taken ill and died later the same day.

Evelyn G. Smith is survived by her daughter, Susan, of west Los Angeles, her sister-in-law, Delores Maycock of Omaha, Nebraska, nieces Kathryn Macdonald of Pinole, California, Jan Mastin-Kamps of Medina, Ohio, Cheril Cross of Omaha, and Kathryn Hurley of Eldridge, Missouri; nephews Tom Maycock of Evanston, Illinois, Tom Mastin of Turlock, California, Ken Robinson of Nederland, Colorado, Rick Robinson of Phoenix, Arizona, and many other nieces, nephews, grand-nieces and -nephews, great-grandnieces and -nephews, cousins, an d friends. Services will be held at St Alban's Episcopal Church, 580 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, at 2 p.m. on June 15th. Donations may be made in her memory to the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial Fund.