Gertrude Smith

Gertrude Smith was born in East Preston in 1898. Her parents were also born in East Preston. Of her grandparents she recalled that her information was that they came as slaves, presumably from the United States and that they lived in Maroon Hill before moving to East Preston.

Of her parents, Gertrude said that her mother was literate but that her father had very little education. He relied on his children for any reading or writing.

Her father worked on the farms of white people in Cole Harbour tending livestock (cattle, sheep, pigs and horses) and tilling the gardens. When her father had saved some money, he bought a house and a hay barn from Benson Smithers, a black minister in the community.

Gertrude remembered her school teachers, one Mr. Gemmond from the West Indies and Martha Jones from Truro. Hers was the famous one-room school with classes from grades 1-9.

She recalled the visits to the community by black Baptist ministers, like Rev. Dixon who came from Africville. He would come on a Saturday night, stay with friends and conduct the evening service on Sunday. According to Gertrude Smith there was no morning service on Sunday at that time.

She says her maternal grandfather was a white person of Welsh descent. She got on well with her white relatives but said that she and her brothers and sisters were pushed around at school because they were half-white.

Gertrude Smith had memories of the Halifax explosion of 1917 which destroyed most of the north end of Halifax as well as other parts. 'All the houses that were located where Stadacona now is, were blown up.'

The interview from which the above summary was drawn was conducted in 1982 when Gertrude Smith was 84 years old. She died in the same year on January 15.

Her husband, Arnold Smith, had predeceased her by twenty-one years. They were married in 1916. The marriage was blessed with two girls and three boys.

Arnold Smith became first president of the Nova Scotia Association for the Advancement of Coloured People when it was formed in 1945. His wife, Gertrude, also took an active part in the Association which she served as Treasurer for many years up to 1968.

This public-spirited couple also served the Church well. Both were members of the Cornwallis Street Baptist Church.

Their daughter, Bernice Powell, recalled in an interview a month after her mother died, how determined Gertrude Smith was to serve the community even when she was widowed in 1963:

             'She worked in the church and was treasurer 

              of the NSAACP until 1968.  She was also 

              President of the Women's Work of the AUBA 

              before it became the Women's Institute and 

              she was that group's first President.  She was

              involved in the Better Community Club, the 

              Criterion Club, and the Gleaners, a women's

              group that met at Oddfellows Hall.  Even after 

              operations led to both her legs being amputated

              she persevered.'

This remarkable person became so incapacitated in 1978 that she was unable to continue to live in her beloved Creighton Street home to which she had been taken as a new bride in 1916. After sixty-two years of residence there, she moved in with her daughter, Bernice Powell, in North Street. Whenever her health allowed it, she continued to attend community functions until the end which came on January 15, 1982.

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