Veterans Day Memorial Show

Shortly after the conclusion of the Second World War Anita Smith—at the behest of James T. Shotwell—sent every member of the armed forces, men and women, in Woodstock, NY, a questionnaire to fill out. Many former members responded with service photos, letters and filled-out forms. These were collected into a database that was presented to the town. In addition, some of the responses formed part of a chapter of Anita Smith's Woodstock History and Hearsay. This chapter was titled "The Soldiers' Stories: Woodstockers Share Their War Experiences." Pictured at left is an artistic sketch of Woodstock's Observation Post, Adam 51.

On November 7th, in honor of Veteran's Day, the Historical Society of Woodstock will present The Faces of World War II—Woodstockers Go to War. The exhibit will feature more than 70 photographs of service personnel from Smith's database. The show will run from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, November 7/8 and November 14/15, at the Society museum, 45 Comeau Drive.

In addition, Anita Smith's book includes a reference section that lists the 288 responses to the questionnaire. Exhibit-goers can look up all 70 service persons in the show and obtain a brief abstract of their armed forces record from her book.

Happy Birthday, Anita!

Anita M. Smith celebrated her birthday 116 years ago on Oct. 20th 1893. Her parents were of Quaker stock and she was born outside Philadelphia in Torresdale at the family estate of Wyndlawn. Smith's paternal ancestors sailed from England with William Penn aboard the Welcome in 1682.

Smith went on to become a world traveler, a noted regionalist painter, herbalist and writer. Her paintings were shown around the country at such places as the National Academy of Design, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

In 1934 she built a bluestone house near Woodstock, NY’s Rock City corners and became a herbalist and embarked on her second career path. By 1940 Smith had customers in all forty-eight contiguous United States, and in a New York Herald Tribune article published that year she was referred to as “the Herb Lady of the Catskills.” During this time she began contributing papers to the Historical Society of Woodstock.

In the 1950s she wrote the town’s first official history and entitled it Woodstock History and Hearsay. Alf Evers wrote in his introduction to her book in 1959 that “one afternoon when I was visiting Anita Smith in her low-ceilinged living room, filled with old Woodstock furniture and momentos and rich with the fragrance of herbs from her garden hanging on the beams to dry, I saw an interesting photograph. It showed Anita Smith’s brother as a baby, sitting on the knee of his grandfather—who in his youth had known George Washington. I think this can serve as symbol of Anita Smith’s approach to the history of our town. For she recognizes the flow of history through generation after generation, sometimes slow, sometimes tumultuous, but forever moving in a continuous and unending stream.”