Edward D. Smith was born in West Orange, New Jersey on 22 December 1915. He attended Rutgers University and worked in a variety of careers, including the Forest Service, the railroad and a Navajo tribe in Arizona. He married Virginia Carson of Farmington, New Mexico and owned a trading post in Oljato, Utah. He died in January of 1986 in Navajo County, Arizona.
Virginia Carson Smith was born about 1921 in Farmingon, New Mexico and spent her whole childhood on the Indian reservation there. Her father ran an Indian trading post. Virginia and her husband later carried on this profession in Oljato, Utah.
From the guide to the Oral history interviews with Edward and Virginia Smith, 27 June 1972, 20 July 1971, (L. Tom Perry Special Collections)
