[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 94 (Tuesday, July 18, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Page S7744]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 A TRIBUTE TO ANNA MAY HAWEKOTTE SMITH

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to a 
remarkable and compassionate woman. Anna May Hawekotte Smith fought 
tirelessly for underdogs of every sort throughout a professional career 
hat lasted more than 50 years. She passed away on July 5 at the rich 
age of 90.
  In 1950, at the age of 35, while pregnant with her fourth child, Anna 
May suffered a crippling stroke. She was left paralyzed, forced to 
relearn such basic functions as walking and talking. Through 
perseverance, Anna May recovered. While a limp and leg brace remained 
the only physical suggestions of her former impairment, the experience 
left a lasting impression on Anna May. For the next 55 years, she used 
her extraordinary empathy, skills, and determination to help others and 
to advance many worthy causes.
  Over the course of her lifetime, Anna May Hawekotte Smith served many 
roles--educator, administrator, advocate of social justice, champion of 
women's rights, wife, and mother. She attended Barat College in Lake 
Forest, IL. After graduating in 1938, Anna May obtained a master's 
degree in speech education from Columbia University in New York. She 
continued her graduate work in speech at Northwestern University in 
Evanston, IL, and interned with doctors at the University of Illinois 
Neuropsychiatric Clinic. Anna May Hawekotte Smith began her 
professional career as a professor at Barat College. She was soon 
promoted to chairman of the college's speech and drama department. 
During her tenure at Barat, she broadcast the first live women's radio 
talk show to spotlight issues related social justice and the 
advancement of women.
  In 1966, she helped develop a program at Barat to help high school 
girls from low-income families in Chicago and Lake County to prepare 
for college. The Upward Bound Program, as it was called, ran for 8 
years and assisted hundreds of young women.
  It was also during her time at Barat that Anna May met her future 
husband, Charles Caroll Smith. Charles was executive director of the 
Catholic Youth Organization of Chicago and the administrative assistant 
to the late Archbishop Bernard J. Sheil. The pair wed in 1941 and 
raised three children together.
  Anna May Hawekotte Smith was a woman of active faith. That was 
evident in her work on behalf of the Catholic Church, as well as in her 
calm acceptance of the hand of God in her own life. Anna May Hawekotte 
Smith did not fear change; she embraced it as an adventure and God's 
will for her. Her daughter, Sheila Smith, said her mother was never 
afraid of seeing one door close because she trusted God would open a 
new door. Sheila remembers a couple of years ago, when Anna May learned 
that Barat College would be closing its doors. She didn't express anger 
or frustration. Instead, she told her daughter that it was time to 
focus on a new venture: the Barat Education Foundation. The foundation, 
created in 2000, would carry on the legacy of the school where she had 
spent so many years.
  In 1969, Anna May's husband Charles passed away. Sheila remembers an 
evening shortly after her father died. She was sitting in the kitchen 
with her mother when Frank Sinatra's classic song, ``My Way'' came on 
the radio. Anna May told her daughter that, though she had been 
comfortable in her life, she had often done what was expected of her 
and what other people wanted. Widowed now, at the age of 54, she was 
free to make her own decisions, to live her life her way.
  Anna May accepted a teaching position at Sangamon State University, 
now the University of Illinois Springfield, in 1973 and remained a 
member of the university faculty until her retirement in 1985. Today, a 
scholarship in her name recognizes Anna May's commitment to the 
advancement of women.
  Following her retirement, Anna May moved back to Chicago, where she 
became assistant director for job development programs at the Northern 
Illinois National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Throughout her life, she 
also supported social justice causes ranging from civil rights to 
women's rights.
  Mr. President, this Friday, July 21, on what would have been Anna 
May's 91st birthday, her friends and family will gather at a memorial 
service at Barat College Chapel to remember and honor this remarkable 
woman. In the words of her family, Anna May Hawekotte Smith was more 
than a lifelong learner, she was a lifelong doer. All of us who knew 
her recall her not only with fondness but with great admiration.
  Our thoughts and prayers are with all of those whom she loved and who 
loved her, especially her children, Charles Smith, Sheila Smith, and 
Catherine Smith Wilson; her two brothers; and her six grandchildren.

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