Los Angeles County
Biographies
REA SMITH
SMITH, REA, Physician and Surgeon, Los Angeles, California, was born at De Kalb, Illinois, November 16, 1876, the son of Everett Russell Smith and of Addie M. (Griswold) Smith. He married Georgia Deering Knight, April 21, 1903, at Los Angeles. They have two children, Everett Russell and Gordon Knight Smith.
The family, which is of colonial stock, settled among the Indians of Vermont not many years after the landing at Plymouth Rock. They did their part in the Indian fighting, and later in the War of the Revolution. By marriage the family was related to many of the notable figures of Vermont in the days of the Revolution. Dr. Smith’s father, Everett Russell Smith, is a distinguished practicing physician of Los Angeles, with important business connections and an enviable record.
The boy was first educated in the schools of De Kalb. At the age of ten his parents decided that the balmy climate of Southern California was preferable to that of Illinois, and moved to Covina. He was sent to the grammar schools of Los Angeles, and later to the Los Angeles City High School, from which he graduated in 1985. He was then sent to the Leland Stanford Junior University. There he was interested in athletics, and made good records in several lines of physical endeavor, as well as in his studies. He graduated with the class in 1899.
The following autumn he was sent to the University of Pennsylvania Medical College, one of the notable medical institutions of the United States. He took the complete course there, also interesting himself in athletics, and received his degree as Doctor of medicine in the year 1902. Desiring to supplement the technical and scientific training of the book and the lecture room of the medical college with practical experience in the hospitals, he enlisted himself as interne in the hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and faced a rigid preparatory practice for a full year.
He returned to Los Angeles in the year 1903, and was admitted as a partner of his father into the general practice of medicine and of surgery. Under this favorable association the skill which he gained in medical school and hospital has been bettered, and he has gained an enviable record.
He has been following a general practice, but his chief reputation has been built upon surgical successes, surgery now forming the bulk of his work.
The practice of father and son has become so extensive that they have associated themselves with a third physician of note, Dr. C. W. Anderson. The firm is now known as the E. R. & Rea Smith & C. W. Anderson Company, physicians and surgeons. Of late years the elder Dr. Smith has been gradually withdrawing from practice, because of the press of other business and his desire to retire. The responsibilities of the firm have been largely shifted to the shoulders of Dr. Rea Smith.
Dr. Smith keeps in touch with the medical profession through the medical associations. He is a member of the American Medical Association, the Clinical and Pathological Society of Los Angeles, and of other local and State professional societies.
Dr. Smith has made himself one of the substantial citizens of Los Angeles. He has invested his capital in the real estate of his home city and of the territory surrounding. He takes an interest in all civic affairs, particularly those which have to do with the bettering of the city. Questions of public health especially appeal to him. He is a student of hospital construction and management.
He believes in recreation and plenty of it. He takes a vacation annually, and lives in the outdoors, fishing for trout in the mountains, hunting and motoring. He has not yet given up the sports of his college days.
Dr. Smith is a member of the California Club, the Los Angeles Athletic Club and of the collegiate societies of the Zeta Psi and the Phi Alpha Sigma.
Transcribed 2-10-10
Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: Press Reference
Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page
374, International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles,
Boston, Atlanta. 1913.
© 2010 Marilyn R. Pankey.
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