Des Moines, Iowa: Neil Smith, who grew up in a small southeast Iowa city and served as a World War II bomber pilot before becoming a successful lawyer and then the longest-serving US House member, has passed away. He was 101 years old.
Smith died Tuesday, according to Drake University Law School dean Jerry Anderson, notified by the Smith family.
During his 36 years in Congress, Smith, a Democrat, was known as a quiet but effective leader whose greatest achievements revolved around the approval of federal funding for dams and reservoirs that flooded cities. and used to build lakes for recreation. Smith noted that the construction of Red Rock, Saylorville Lake and Rathbun Lake changed the way people viewed the Des Moines River Valley, turning it into a larger asset rather than a liability, and spurred development in places such as Des Moines. .
It used to be on weekends that you didn’t have a place to go, unless you were rich enough, the place in the northern Great Lakes, Smith said in a May 2015 interview on Iowa Public Radio. Most of the people did not have a place to go especially to be in nature.
Neil Edward Smith was born on March 23, 1920, in the southeast Iowa city of Heydrick, in a home owned by his grandparents on land settled by his grandparents in 1850. In public radio interviews, Smith recalled that his family was poor during the Great Depression. depression but that he always got food from his farm. He also recalled the joy of spending time outside, watching the wildlife and taking a pony ride with the kids who live nearby.
As a bomber with the Army Air Forces during World War II, he was shot down. He received the Purple Heart and other medals but felt uncomfortable discussing his war experience.
Well, let me tell you, I never talk about it. I was in the Pacific. I came back and many of my friends didn’t come back and they just forgot, he said.
After the war, he attended the University of Missouri and Syracuse University before obtaining a law degree from Drake University in Des Moines in 1950. He farmed, worked as a lawyer, and served as an assistant county attorney in Polk County before he was elected. Congress.
Smith said he was inspired to enter politics in 1948 during President Harry Truman’s campaign. With Truman expected to be defeated, Smith went to state Democratic headquarters and asked how he could help. He was asked to start a Young Democrats club in Drake, which he did.
He also recalled that during the Great Depression, politicians managed to give hope to the people.
Smith said in an Iowa Public Radio interview, it seemed that people working in government were trying to help improve the situation, and that led to the idea that government service was a good thing.
He was first elected in 1958 during the Eisenhower administration and remained so until 1995, when Republicans took control of the House during Bill Clinton’s presidency. His loss to Republican Greg Ganske was partly due to redistribution, which transformed his compact Des Moines-focused district into a more conservative region stretching to the western border.
Several central Iowa sites bear their names, including the Neil Smith National Wildlife Refuge near Prairie City, the paved Neil Smith Trail, the Neil Smith Federal Building in Des Moines, and the Neil and B. Smith Law Center at Drake University.
Smith married Beatrix Havens in 1946, and she became one of Des Moines’ few female attorneys before joining him in Washington.
Michael Gartner, owner of the Iowa Cubs minor league baseball team and former editor of the Des Moines Register, said he knew Smith well during the paper.
I once wrote that Iowa has everything God and Neil Smith can provide, Gartner said. He was just an honest man. There was the slightest reluctance of that farmer in that. When they talked, you paid attention. He always had good ideas and always knew how to get things done.
In a 2020 Des Moines Register interview to celebrate his 100th birthday, Smith attributed his longevity to abstaining from alcohol, coffee, tea and cigarettes, calling them unnecessary stimulants.
Smith’s wife died in 2016. They have two children, Doug Smith of Florida and Sharon Vandershall from Iowa.
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