A groundbreaker: Remembering Mrs. Edith Renfrow Smith `37
Scarlet & Black 2026-01-20
At the 2024 dedication ceremony of Renfrow Hall, the Grinnell College residence hall named in honor of her, Mrs. Edith Renfrow Smith `37 requested that “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” often called the Black National Anthem, be sung. During the performance, a then 110-year-old Smith stood up and looked out at the crowd of around 300 attendees. Some were sitting.
Smith stuck her hand out and motioned for them to stand. Her message was clear — you don’t sit for this.
“She was still teaching us,” Dr. Tamara Beauboeuf-Lafontant, professor and chair of gender, women’s and sexuality studies, said of the moment. “She was still helping us to see that this was big, and it was part of a larger history that goes beyond Grinnell.”
“And it is a deeply Black history story, as well,” she added.
On Friday, Jan. 2, Smith died at her home in Chicago. She was 111.
Eighty-nine years ago, Smith became the first Black woman to graduate from Grinnell College. Her legacy has led to hundreds of Black women following in her footsteps to matriculate at the College.
Smith was a groundbreaker, Beauboeuf-Lafontant said.
Mrs. Edith Renfrow Smith, top right, watches the Renfrow Hall Dedication Ceremony on Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (Zach Spindler-Krage)Being a first: Smith’s early days
On July 14, 1914, Smith was born in Grinnell to Mrs. Eva Pearl Craig and Mr. Lee Renfrow. She was the granddaughter of Mr. George Craig and Mrs. Eliza Jane Craig, who were both born into slavery.
Smith, in her long life, would live through two World Wars, the Great Depression, the Civil Rights Movement and the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I knew I had a historic figure sitting in front of me,” Stuart Yeager `82 said of her. In February 1982, Yeager had interviewed Smith as part of a project to tell the history of Black students at Grinnell College up until 1954. Yeager’s interview is one of the first documented interests at the College of Smith’s life.
“She was so humble,” Yeager recalled. “She didn’t even make much of the fact that she was the first African-American woman.”
Before Smith, a handful of Black men had attended the College and the closely-aligned preparatory school, which acted as a feeder for Grinnell. Some of them had walked away with their degree. Smith fondly remembered some of these men, known as the Rosenwald Scholars, whom her family invited into their home for Sunday dinners, piano-playing and singing.
Two Black women had also attended Grinnell before Smith, though neither graduated.
In 1863, the Trustees almost unanimously decided to admit the first Black woman, Rebecca June Clark, to the College’s prep school. The Trustees who decided to admit her cited reasons like Christian morality and the earlier decision to admit white women, but a few had some reservations about “extensive race mingling, positive social acceptance, and the general quality of life” for Black students, Yeager writes in the publication of his study.
Anna May Lucas, a cousin of Smith, had also attended the College before Smith but had ultimately left to pursue training in nursing.
Clark, Lucas and Smith, unlike the Rosenwald Scholars, were not recruited by the College, nor were they supported financially by the Rosenwald Fund.
“They didn’t recruit me at all,” Smith said in her interview with Yeager. “I recruited myself.”
During her time at Grinnell, Smith lived at her childhood home at 411 1st Ave., walked a mile back and forth to campus most school days and worked jobs to pay her $275 tuition each year. Like her mother instilled in her and her siblings, education was a priority.
On June 7, 1937, Smith graduated from the College with a degree in psychology. Her graduation picture, taken by a local photographer, was arranged by her mother.
After graduating, Smith moved to Chicago to work at the Young Women’s Christian Association.
In 1940, she married her husband, Mr. Henry T. Smith. They had two daughters together, Virginia and Alice.
She didn’t think she was a senior. She never thought of herself as being that.
— Alice Frances Smith
In 1954, she began her career as a teacher in the Chicago public school system. She would work in the system for 22 years.
Even after retiring from teaching, Smith still remained active in her community. She spent over 20 years volunteering at Goodwill and the Art Institute of Chicago. At the Art Institute, Smith specifically enjoyed talking to the children who would come in, said Smith’s daughter, Miss Alice Frances Smith, 80.
Smith volunteered into her nineties.
For 50 years, she was also a member of the First United Methodist Church of Chicago. As she became older, parishioners would visit her home weekly to give her communion.
“She had so many wonderful thoughts about the people that she had grown up with and that she was related to,” Marva Andrews, 78, a member of the church said.
Andrews recalled how mentally sharp Smith was for the five or six years that she knew her and visited her home. Even into her 110s, Smith knew the cost of a gallon of gas, Andrews said.
Smith was one of the few people in the world considered a supercentenarian, or someone who had reached the age of 110. She participated in several research studies for fellow “superagers” with extraordinary memory.
“She didn’t think she was a senior,” Alice said. “She never thought of herself as being that.”
Team Renfrow uncovers legacy of Black Grinnellians
In 2019, Smith was granted an honorary doctorate degree from Grinnell College.
Not once, but twice, was the ceremony interrupted by applause for Smith.
“Grinnell has been my life,” Smith said to a sea of graduates. “And life has been wonderful. Remember, take every opportunity to do your best. And I have done it, I hope.”
Just a few months after Smith’s honorary degree ceremony, Beauboeuf-Lafontant joined Grinnell’s faculty. She was aware that staunch abolitionist J.B. Grinnell founded the town on the tenet of anti-slavery in 1854. Grinnell College later renamed itself after J.B. Grinnell in 1909.
Mrs. Edith Renfrow Smith signs the book chronicling her life, “No One Is Better Than You: Edith Renfrow Smith and the Power of a Mother’s Words,” written by Monique Shore `90, Sept. 28, 2024. (Zach Spindler-Krage)When Beauboeuf-Lafontant was learning about Smith before coming to Grinnell, she saw a discrepancy between the College’s inception, its tenets and the 91 years it took to graduate its first Black female student.
“That’s a long time to have your first given the kind of school you say you are,” she said. “So professionally and personally, as I was trying to get my bearings here, I was very intrigued.”
Beauboeuf-Lafontant felt that more could be done to recognize the legacy of Smith.
“It was professional curiosity and a sense of this is bigger than an honorary doctorate,” Beauboeuf-Lafontant said. “This is significant. This is a legacy that we have to start to uncover.”
Beginning in the summer of 2021, Beauboeuf-Lafontant started what would come to be known as “Team Renfrow,” a group of students, faculty, staff and alumni who worked to document the lives of Smith, her family and Black Grinnellians. A rich narrative of the Renfrow Smith family, a children’s book by Monique McLay Shore `90 and a website sharing the group’s research would come from the team.
Beauboeuf-Lafontant and Feven Getachew `24 were the first members of Team Renfrow.
In June of 2021, Beauboeuf-Lafontant and Getachew visited Smith in Chicago as one of the first steps towards beginning to document the rich lives of Black Grinnellians and the Renfrow Smith family.
“We became family after I first visited her in 2021,” Getachew said. After that visit, Getachew began calling Smith “Gramma.”
Through Smith, who she often visited on her school breaks, Getachew learned to find a home away from her native country of Ethiopia.
“She sees home as something that you actively build,” Getachew said. “What makes a home is the amount of work you’re willing to put in and the people in it. That’s what she taught me.”
Valeriya Woodard `25, another member of Team Renfrow, came to call Smith Gramma, too. Woodard first visited Smith in 2024 for her 110th birthday.
“Where her and I really connected is we have very young hearts, and we’re very girly together,” Woodard said.
The two were both involved with singing and sports during their time at Grinnell. “I often say, if we were at college at the same time, we totally would be friends,” Woodard said. “We were so similar.”
From left: Valeriya Woodard `25 and Mrs. Edith Renfrow Smith embrace outside of Woodard’s “Rooted in Resilience” exhibit in the Edith Renfrow Smith ’37 Student Art Gallery on Sept. 26, 2024. (Contributed by Valeriya Woodard)Renfrow Hall dedication: Smith’s homecoming
In the fall of 2024, the dozens of people who worked to bring Smith’s story to the forefront of the College finally saw the culmination of their work.
Renfrow Hall was dedicated on Sept. 28, 2024. Smith was honored over a two-day celebration at the College.
The Thursday before the dedication, Smith flew in on a private jet to the Grinnell Regional Airport. Members of Team Renfrow were there to welcome her.
“It felt like a homecoming,” Woodard said. “She came home.”
Beauboeuf-Lafontant said the moment felt like righting a wrong. “To see her but to also know that this was an honor that some people might see as overdue, a belated recognition — it’s huge, it’s beautiful and meant a lot to her,” she said.
For some, that weekend was a reunion. Yeager, who hadn’t seen Smith since his interview with her in 1982, reunited with her over dinner.
But for Yeager, the most impactful moment that weekend was seeing the dozen or so banners of different Black women who had graduated from Grinnell after Smith first broke down that barrier.
“I got chills looking at that,” Yeager said. “You got a sense this is the path that Edith Renfrow Smith made for all of these future women.”
She started something that has made it from being just about her to being about so many Black Grinnellians.
— Valeriya Woodard `25
And the recognition of that path was what Smith wanted.
When Smith was asked for permission by College President Anne Harris to name Renfrow Hall in her honor, Smith emphasized the importance of the dorm representing not only her, but everyone that came after her, too.
“Not only did she say, yeah, that’d be great, but it was also like, ‘This needs to honor all the women,’” Shore said, who was present when Smith was asked. “It’s really about all the other people that it’s meaningful to.”
A story that lives on
During her time at Grinnell, Smith was the only Black student. It took over 10 more years for the next Black woman to graduate after her.
Now, since Smith’s graduation, at least 600 Black women have matriculated at Grinnell College, Woodard has found from her research as the College’s first public history collective post-baccalaureate fellow. Woodard’s research works to develop the incomplete Black history of the College.
Though Woodard’s research is not just about Smith, it did originate with her.
“She started something that has made it from being just about her to being about so many Black Grinnellians,” Woodard said. “I would not be here if it were not for her.”
Renfrow Hall, the Smith Gallery and the Edith Renfrow Smith Black Women’s Library in the Conney M. Kimbo Black Cultural Center are three spaces on Grinnell’s campus that honor Smith’s legacy.
At 8 a.m. every day, a reminder of Smith pops up on Woodard’s phone — a notification telling her to call Gramma E.
Another reminder of Smith sits on Woodard’s phone — a photo album, with memories of Woodard’s work on Team Renfrow and her visits with Smith, contains 646 photos and 17 videos. Dozens of the photos are of Woodard and Smith together, making funny faces and smiling.
For Beauboeuf-Lafontant, reminders of Smith are all across her office. Pictures of Smith with members from Team Renfrow have lined her office walls since 2021. On the door to her office is a photo from her first visit with Smith, who proudly has a Grinnell College t-shirt, given to her by Beauboeuf-Lafontant, splayed across her chest.
Perhaps most striking in Beauboeuf-Lafontant’s office is a large framed photo of Smith from the day she received her honorary degree. In it, Smith has a small smile, similar to the one she wore in her 1937 graduation photo.
The framed photo was a gift from Getachew and hangs just to the right of Beauboeuf-Lafontant’s desk. “She looks over me,” Beauboeuf-Lafontant said. “She reminds me that this is the history that I walk into.”
“I cannot wait to tell my kids about her. I can’t wait for my kids to tell their kids about her,” Woodard said. “Her story will live on, and it feels really incredible and fortunate that I am part of this story.”
It was Smith’s wish both for her body to be donated to science and for there to be no funeral service after she died.
She is survived by her daughter, Miss Alice Frances Smith, and preceded in death by her mother, Mrs. Eva Pearl Craig Renfrow, her father, Mr. Lee Renfrow, her husband, Mr. Henry T. Smith, and her daughter, Miss Edith Virginia Smith.