Mary Louise Smith
1974
Mary Louise Smith with President Richard Nixon and George H. W. Bush
1974
Mary Louise Smith with President Gerald Ford
Mary Louise Smith was born on October 6, 1914, in Eddyville, Iowa, United States. She was the second of two daughters of Frank Epperson, a bank president, and Louise (Jager) Epperson, a homemaker. In 1929 the bank failed and the Eppersons moved to Iowa City.
Mary Louise graduated from Iowa City High School in 1931. She married medical student Elmer M. Smith while both were studying at the University of Iowa. She graduated in 1935 with a degree in social work administration and worked for the Iowa Employment Relief Administration in Iowa City.
After moving to Eagle Grove Mary Smith became active in civic life and Republican Party politics. She became the membership chair of the Iowa Council of Republican Women in 1961 and was elected vice-chairwoman of the Wright County Republican Central Committee the following year. She was elected national committeewoman for Iowa in 1964, a post she held for the next twenty years.
In 1974, during the wake of the Watergate scandal, President Gerald Ford named her the first female chair of the Republican National Committee. She held that post until 1977, and in that role became the first woman of her party, and the second woman of a major party, to organize a presidential nominating convention, the 1976 Republican National Convention in Kansas City. In 1978, she served as Co-Manager of the Committee for Governor Ray in the successful fourth re-election campaign of Iowa Governor Robert D. Ray.
Mary Smith campaigned for George H. W. Bush in the 1980 primaries but supported Ronald Reagan both in the 1980 and 1984 general elections. Reagan appointed her vice-chairwoman of the United States Commission on Civil Rights in 1981 but declined to re-appoint her in 1984. Smith was a social liberal, while the party and the electorate were shifting to the right. In 1991, President George H.W. Bush appointed her to the board of directors of the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP). Influenced by her husband's experiences as a medic during the Vietnam War, she had become active in movements to establish a national peace institute, and she served with USIP until her death.
Mary Smith served as a member of Drake University’s board of trustees throughout the 1980s. At the University of Iowa, she founded, together with Louise Noun, the Iowa Women’s Archives, a repository for the papers of Iowa women and women’s organizations, which opened in 1992.
Mary Smith died of lung cancer in Des Moines at the age of 82. A widow, she was survived by three children.
A member of the United Church of Christ, Mary Smith served on the board of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, Iowa Region.
Mary Smith was active in such organizations as the Republican Mainstream Committee, Iowa Women's Political Caucus, and Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa.
Quotes from others about the person
In Washington, Mary Louise Smith was often referred to as the "little old lady from Iowa."
Mary Smith married Elmer Smith on October 7, 1934, and subsequently had three children: Robert (b. 1937), Margaret (b. 1939), and James (b. 1942).
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