Embedded Files
Birdie's 2011 Autobiography
After graduation I traveled south of the Mason Dixon Line to the Women’s College of the University of North Carolina (Greensboro). My freshman year my roommate’s mother took my Mom aside and told her she hoped Lynne Rae wouldn’t pick up my Yankee accent!! Wow, you all!! That was also one of my mother’s worst fears--that I’d come home with a Southern drawl. Four years later, with a BA in Sociology/Anthropology and a minor in Spanish, I graduated with my “Yankee accent” intact.
From North Carolina I traveled to the University of Texas (Austin). I had been accepted into the PhD program in Latin American Studies. During the first year I decided that the intensity of the competition in the PhD program was not for me. I was there (on campus) when Charles Whitman conducted his massacre from the Library tower. That definitely helped me make a decision. My program advisor, who was also a research consultant to a federally funded project in El Paso, Texas arranged for me to obtain the position of Research Director for the El Paso Juvenile Delinquency Study Project. For the next three and a half years I worked in El Segundo Barrio. In addition to collecting data and writing reports, I did a little bit of everything: studied “curanderismo” (folk healing), got involved in a couple of gang fights, wrote a paper on glue sniffing (not from personal experience!), and got to know a lot of wonderful people.
When the JD Project ended, I had been recommended for a job in Boulder, Colorado. I moved to Boulder in 1969 and began work for the Colorado Migrant Council. I wrote pamphlets and papers and became an advocate for the Chicano migrant worker. I earned an MA in Special Education from the University of Colorado and for 2 years was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mexican American Studies.
Next stop--Washington State University (Pullman) where I was the Director of the Upward Bound Program until June 1977. I worked with low income (white, indian, black, chicano) high school students during the academic years and directed a six week summer program on the WSU campus.
After relocating the Upward Bound Program to Yakima, Washington, I moved to Seattle where I worked for the King County Health Planning Council and studied for my MPA degree at Seattle University. After receiving my degree, I moved to Whidby Island, Washington where I took a position of Rehabilitation Coordinator for New Leaf, Inc. This involved providing and monitoring vocational rehabilitation services for developmentally disabled adults. I stayed with New Leaf for almost ten years, leaving as Executive Director in 1991. While at New Leaf, I met and married (1984) my husband, Jim Smith. It was a second marriage for both of us.
We bought property south of Eugene, Oregon and in 1991 moved to Sotherlin, Oregon. Two years later I took the job of Executive Director for Douglas Resident Training Facilities. The program provided residential care for mentally retarded/mentally ill clients. I spent nine years directing that program. In 2001, Jim and I decided to move closer to the coast. We decided to make one final?? move and “retire” near Coos Bay, Oregon. Our current farm is about twelve miles outside of Coos Bay. We raise Scottish Highland Cattle, breed and train Tennessee Walking Horses and have the assorted sheep, goats, chickens, cats and dogs. No children. For the past four years I have been riding and showing Tennessee Walking Horses. With the help of an excellent trainer, we have won our share of blue ribbons.
Folks now know me as “Bobbie” (Wilson) Smith but I still answer to Birdie. Peggy (Dean) Braz and I have maintained a close connection for over sixty years!! I’m Aunt Birdie to her kids and grandkids. I guess I’ll always be Birdie in my heart!!
2021 Update
Birdie passed away in 2012.
Her lifelong friend, Peggy Dean wrote:
There is no way I can express how much I miss her. She was family. My kids called her Aunt Birdie and she was Godmother to one of my grandsons. She was a wonderful person. So loving; so giving. She loved animals and in later life she had a farm on which she raised Tennessee Walking horses along with highland cattle (to celebrate her Scottish heritage) sheep, goats, chickens and of course a dog and a few cats. She named them all. Well, I am not sure about the chickens, but I wouldn't be surprised. She got sick shortly after we returned from the 50th reunion. That was our last adventure and it will always be a memory that is filled with nostalgia. It was a fast moving cancer and it metastasized. I had pushed her to go to a cancer center but she opted to stay home with the animals and home she loved. Don't know that it would have made any difference. I was with her for several surgeries and treatments. She was a fighter but sometimes you don't win. Her husband passed away in 2019 and I will put his ashes in Puget Sound where Birdie's are, as soon as I can safely travel to Washington. I am hoping for August.
My greeting to everyone. Enjoy and reminisce.
I have attached a few pictures and Birdie's obituary.
(Photos of Birdie will be added here.)
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