Helen (Stanfield) Smith

Obituary

Class of 1940

Oct. 17, 1921 – Dec. 10, 1989

Helen (Stanfield) Smith, 68, of Boise, died Sunday, Dec. 10, 1989, at her home of natural causes. Memorial services will be held at 2 p.m. Friday, Dec. 16, at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church. The Rev. Rick Harvey and the Rev. Edwina Aker will officiate. Cremation is under the direction of Alden-Waggoner Chapel.

Helen, an author, homemaker and mother, was born on Oct. 17, 1921, at Vale, Ore., a daughter of Gerald and Gertrude Stanfield. She graduated with a degree in history from the University of Idaho in 1944, where she belonged to Alpha Theta Sorority. She married George Oliver Smith in 1945, and worked in the newsreel pub- lishing unit of the Army Pictorial Service at Signal Corps Photo Center, Long Island, N.Y. in 1945- 46.

With the war over, Helen and George opened an independent film production business in 1949 at Boise, where she resided for the rest of her life. Helen authored the scripts for thirty-eight documentary movies. She was also a volunteer at the Idaho State School and Hospital in Nampa in the late 1960’s, a chair person for the Boise area fund drive for the American Heart Association, in 1972.

She was a licensed layreader in the Episcopal Diocese of Idaho throughout the seventies, and was active in St. Stephen’s Epis- copal Church, Boise. As a fellow member of the Uni- versity of Idaho Library, and as an avid reader, she expressed great interest in the library devel- opment. She authored the feature article in the publication, THE IDAHO LIBRARIAN, April 1966 issue. The piece was entitled “Idaho Libraries Today.” Presently the Idaho Daughters of the Amer- ican Revolution are using the film production “I D A H O” authored by Helen as their Idaho 1990 Centennial Project.

Survivors include her husband, George of Boise; two sons, Stuart Foster Smith of Anchorage, Ala. and Anthony Peter Stanfield Smith of Boise; a daughter, Shelley Jordan Smith-Haddow of Seattle, Wash.; two grandchildren, Charity and Aaron Smith; one brother, Robert Stanfield of Boise; one sister, Geraldine Ann Stevenson of Reardon, Wash. She was preceded in death by her parents.

The family suggests that memorials may be made to St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, 2206 N. Cole Rd., Boise 83704 or to the Mountain States Tumor Institute, 151 E. Bannock St., Boise 83712.

From The Idaho Statesman – Boise, Idaho – Wednesday, December 13, 1989