Esther Pond Smith papers, 1923-1954

Esther Elizabeth Pond Smith was born in Craig, Nebraska on December 25, 1899 to Charles and Anna Pond. In her senior year at Plainview High School in Nebraska, Smith took on a job as a rural teacher of home economics. After graduation, she enrolled at Iowa State College of Agricultural and Mechanical Arts in Ames, Iowa, and completed her Bachelor of Science in home economics. In 1923, Smith returned to Plainview and continued to teach home economics to families preparing to work on farms under the Smith-Hughes Act of 1917. In 1925 she returned to Iowa State College to work as the college’s Extension Clothing Specialist, and in 1928 moved into the general home management branch. In 1930, she accepted a position at the University of Wyoming in Laramie to develop a new department of home management for their extension service. However, in 1933, funding for her department was cut and she returned to Iowa State College Extension. There she started a 4-H program in home management through the Extension Service, which was the first program of its kind in the United States.

In 1935, Smith came to Pullman to become Washington State College’s Extension Economist in home management. During her time in this position, she wrote more than twenty publications for the Extension Service and was published in Kelvinator’s Kitchen Reporter. Most of her articles related to time and motion economy, and streamlining common household tasks. Smith’s work and studies are focused on domestic management, which, during her career, she studied at Columbia University and Purdue University. While at WSU, Esther collaborated with Stanley A. Smith, University Architect and professor and Head of the architectural engineering department. The pair collaborated on many Extension Bulletin publications related to home design and space requirements for maximum efficiency of tasks, and won fourth prize in the Chicago Tribune contest for best kitchen design. Stanley and Esther were married on September 27, 1945. Esther continued to work with the Extension Service and was hired as Instructor of household equipment for WSU’s home economics (euthenics) department. During this time, Esther also received her Master’s degree from WSU in home economics. In 1945 she was appointed by the Human Nutrition and Home Economics Division of the United States Department of Agriculture to complete micro-motion studies on food preparation in farm kitchens in order to establish the most efficient arrangement of kitchen equipment.

When Stanley A. Smith retired in 1950, the couple moved to Ankara, Turkey where Stanley had been appointed architectural advisor to the Ataturk University Development Committee. When they returned to Pullman, Esther joined the Whitman County Historical Society, amassed a large collection of historic photographs of Pullman, and contributed regularly to The Bunchgrass Historian. Esther published a small book on the history of the small town where she and Mr. Smith summered (Excelsior Beach on Lower Twin Lake, Kootenai County, Idaho, 1966). An active local historian, Esther spearheaded the project to create the artesian well replica fountain on Kamiaken Street in Pullman. Moreover, Esther was in the process of writing a book about Pullman’s history, which she never completed. Her research and photo collection were given to the Whitman Historical Society at the time of her death. Both Stanley and Esther Smith died in Pullman in 1988.