Cyril E. and Esther R. Smith Scholarship

Esther Oyer Smith attended Goshen College in 1930 and 31. She was the sister of Dean Noah Oyer, and lived with him at the corner of 8th street and College Avenue. She remembers Goshen College as a friendly place, much smaller than it is today, where ‘everybody knew everybody else.” She remembers playing tennis on the courts behind the Administration Building, and chatting for long hours with friends in Henry’s Tea Room, a long-disappeared establishment in downtown Goshen.

But her stay at Goshen involved more than recreation. She came to strengthen her already extensive qualifications as a teacher after her normal school certificate had run out. When she left Goshen she returned to that profession, and taught for a total of 37 years all in Michigan. During the summers she also spent a good deal of time in her younger years as a practical nurse and governess in Detroit and Chicago homes. She even spent some time caring for the children of the “czar of the cleaners and dyers,” a Chicago businessman with under world connections (formerly a University of Chicago professor).

Her practical nursing led her to a job in Clinton County, Michigan, where she cared for Cyril Smith’s mother and several other patients. A romance soon followed, and she and Cyril were married in 1942. Almost immediately Cyril was called into the Medical Corps of the U.S. Army. He served up and down the east coast, at the Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C. and eventually in Europe with Patton’s army. He was discharged in 1945. He returned to civilian life as a factory worker with Saylor Beall, a company that manufactured air compressors. He stayed with that company until his retirement in 1973. Esther retired from teaching in 1971.

Esther has been involved in education all her life. She feels she has “spent a lifetime going to school.” She is a member of the National and the Michigan Education Associations and is the secretary of the Clinton County Chapter of the Michigan Association of Retired School personnel. Cyril was treasurer of the Bethel Mennonite Church in St. John, Michigan for twelve years. In the last three years the Smiths have done volunteer work around the St. John area, when they aren’t painting, gardening, reading or ‘tinkering.”

“Today’s young people will someday be ruling the world,” said Cyril, in response to a question concerning the scholarship. “They’ll need a Christian foundation to fall back on.”

“That’s right,’ said Esther. “This is a way we can help young people right now.”