Paul Ernest Smith (1922-2005).

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Author: Gaber, Catherine J. bg@his.com

A dedicated micromounter, Paul Smith spent many, many hours playing with his specimens. As a youngster on a farm, Paul swore he would never ever pick up rocks again, but when his daughter Paula became interested in rocks, he found himself doing just that. Paul and his wife, Jennie, became so intensely interested in fossils and minerals that they helped start the Park Forest Earth Science Club in the Chicago area in 1970. It was an auspicious beginning of a long association with the hobby.

One of Paul's many contributions to this field was to serve as the micromounting/photomicrography instructor at the Eastern Federation's Wildacres Workshop in Little Switzerland, North Carolina, for the past ten years. His classroom was always a gathering spot for micromounters and anyone who was curious about the technique. He also served as an officer in a number of mineral clubs in the Washington area, including being president of the Micromineralogists of the National Capital Area and the Mineralogical Society of the District of Columbia. On weekends, he could often be found at mineral shows demonstrating micromounting, displaying pictures of microminerals on a television screen, or participating in a mineral symposium. For many years, Paul also took photomicrographs of all the auction donations for the Atlantic Micromounts Conference. For his many years of service in various capacities, Paul was inducted into the prestigious Micromounters Hall of Fame in 2004.

Paul was born in Dixmont, Maine, on 26 November 1922 and grew up on a small farm in central Maine. He attended one-room schools for his elementary education, and he went to high school at the Hampden Academy. The NYA Machinist Trade School prepared Paul for a job making parts for 20-mm gun mounts for antiaircraft guns after Pearl Harbor. He served in the Navy from 1942 to 1946 and worked in the machine shop of the USS Prairie as it traveled to Argentina, Newfoundland, and the South Pacific.

Paul returned to Maine and earned his degree from the University of Maine in public management in January 1950. He then worked as an assessing officer in Brunswick, Maine, supervising the tax mapping and reevaluation of all the town's real estate and business personal property. He also met and wed Jennie, who went with him when he was recruited as the city assessor for Aberdeen, South Dakota. After two years he was hired by a national appraisal firm in Chicago, where they lived for the next twenty years. After the firm transferred him to the Washington, D.C., area, he found a new job as director of the Personal Property Division of the Office of Assessments in Fairfax County, Virginia. In 1986 he became supervisor of assessments for the county and was in charge of both the Personal Property and the Real Estate divisions. He retired from that position in 1994.

While in Chicago, he and Jennie took many collecting trips in Illinois, Arkansas, Missouri, South Dakota, Michigan, and Ohio. Paul started cutting small rocks with a trim saw and graduated to a 20-inch cutting saw. He also enjoyed making cabochons for various kinds of jewelry that he often presented as gifts. When the Smiths moved to Virginia, they had to change their collecting habits because there were fewer opportunities to collect hand-sized specimens. Shortly after the move, they discovered the Baltimore Mineral Society's annual micromount symposium, which prompted them to buy microscopes and led them to become dedicated micromounters. They joined nearly all the Washington-area clubs to take advantage of field trips, and Paul took up gold panning in Virginia and Maryland with the late Jack Nelson. Sizable nuggets are rare enough that his microscope skills still served him well.

It was important to Paul that the mineral collecting hobby was a family endeavor from the start. He and Jennie have exhibited minerals countless times and earned the American Federation of Mineralogical Societies (AFMS) advanced trophy for micromounts in 1994. That same year they took first place in the AFMS slide competition (with their good friend Fred Schaefermeyer), and in 2000 they earned a first place with honors for their slide program on diamonds. Paul also won awards for some of the articles he wrote for various club bulletins. He earned an AFMS trophy for a subject near and dear to his heart--using squirrel whiskers as pedestals for micromounting. In 2004, the Eastern Federation of Mineralogical and Lapidary Societies presented Paul with its highest honor, the Eastern Citation Award.

Jennie, his wife of fifty-seven years, his two children, and five grandchildren were all infected with Paul's enthusiasm for minerals, and they all have favorite tales to tell. It would be impossible to estimate how many people became mineral collectors or micromounters through his influence. He lost his struggle with cancer on 30 October 2005, but through his collections, his writings, and his photomicrographs, he will be long remembered.

Paul Ernest Smith

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By Catherine J. Gaber, 5707 Northfield Road, Bethesda, Maryland 20817

Catherine J. Gaber, a past president of the Eastern Federation of Mineralogical and Lapidary Societies (EFMLS), is a mineral collector, a writer, and an instructor at the EFMLS Wildacres Workshop.; bg@his.com