Class Scrapbook Collection: album of William T. Smyth '44, Gerald F. Dale '43

Content Description

Scrapbook or album: One volume of photographs, and other memorabilia, from William T. Smyth's years at Hamilton, 1940-1943; many of the photos are annotated. Note: Most of the pictures were taken by Gerry Dale. He died in a plane crash as a US Air Force pilot--about three months after his marriage and getting his wings-1944. William T. Smyth was born on January 23, 1922 in Pottsville, PA. He came to Hamilton College in 1940 with the intention to practice medicine, and in 1943, because of wartime exigencies, he went to the University of Pennsylvania Medical School under the Navy V-12 program. He was belatedly granted a Hamilton diploma in 1946, the same year he received his M.D. degree. For the next three years he served in the Navy, and was released in 1949 a lieutenant (j.g.). The same year, he married Virginia E. Wigginton in Athens, GA, and pursued a four-year residency in pathology at the University of Iowa. He was then employed as a pathologist at the Veterans Administration hospitals in Iowa City and Albany, NY. In 1959, Dr. Smyth was named assistant director of the Cayuga County Laboratory in Auburn NY, and was a five-year member of the Port Bryon Central School District. In 1968, he was appointed as the pathologist at Saint Vincent Health Center in Erie, PA, a job he kept until a heart attack forced him to retired in 1985. During his life, Dr. Smyth was a woodworker, a member of Erie Symphonic Singers, a deacon of the First Presbyterian Church of the Covenant in Erie and did a great deal of volunteer and mission work. Dr. Smyth died on August 24, 1997, in Erie of lung cancer. He was survived by his wife, his three daughters, his son, his five grandchildren and one of his brothers.

Acquisition Type

Gift

Provenance

Donated by William T. Smyth '44

Restrictions Apply

No