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Dunbar W. Smith M.D.

Dr. Smith was born during a severe Midwest snowstorm on October 17, 1910, on the second floor of the John Dunbar house in Dunbar, Nebraska. His father was Clarence Dunbar Smith, who had married Marie Christine Eden in December of 1909. Dunbar was the firstborn of four brothers and one sister, he eldest grandson of Mary Dunbar Smith, and the second grandson of John and Johanna Eden.

Dr. Smith’s record of service for the Seventh-day Adventist denomination is enviable. He served as minister, clinical physician, and health administrator in four different world divisions, and was a solid supporter of the worldwide work for the church. He authored six books. He served on the boards of the Alumni Association of the School of Medicine of Loma Linda University, the Adventist International Medical Society (AIMS), the Emerald Health and Education Foundation, and the Leprosy Board. Dr. Smith’s parents became Seventh-day Adventists in 1882. At one time, the Seventh-day Adventist church in Dunbar, Nebraska, was the largest church in the denomination west of the Missouri River. This was the same church that young Dunbar attended in his youth. The family later moved to Kimball County, where he attended school. In 1925, the Smith family moved to New York City where Dunbar’s father had taken employment. The big city was drastically different from their Nebraska home in the town of Dunbar. The conference president at that time was Carlyle B. Haynes, and the pastor of the church in Manhattan was L. K. Dickson. Both of these men later became members of the General Conference staff. Young Dunbar enrolled in the Greater New York Academy which was located in Upper Manhattan at that time. Dunbar was rebaptized in the old Temple Church of Manhattan in New York City. After a year at the former Southern Junior College, Dunbar decided to go west to attend the Southern California Junior College which is now LaSierra University. He graduated from the junior college in 1932. Later on, he decided to go to San Diego to take the nurses’ course, graduating from the Paradise Valley Sanitarium and Hospital in 1935. During this time, he met Kathryn, his future wife. They we re in each other’s company for a long time before they decided to get married. On May 2, 1935, they joined their lives together in the Riverside Church, with Earl Hackman presiding, who at that time was president of the Southeastern California Conference. The Smiths honeymooned in a cabin at Lake Arrowhead. Dr. Smith was employed by the conference as a pastor on July 1, 1935. His first assignment was to pastor the El Cajon and Lemon Grove churches. As an intern pastor of two churches (with no perks except a modest automobile allowance), his salary was $16 a week. It was while pastoring in this conference that he received a call to do evangelistic work in Indiaas an overseas missionary. The family left the United States on May 9, 1939, with their first son who was only three weeks old at the time. Dr. Smith was called to mission service in India as an evangelist to English-speaking people of the Southern Asia Division. The General Conference provided a special budget of $10,000 for him to carry out this work. Arriving one week before World War II broke out, he held his first three-month campaign in Poona,India. At that time, Poona was headquarters for the division. As a result of Dr. Smith’s first mission, five people we rebaptized and he was disappointed with the results, but was told that some missionaries had been in India for a lifetime and had baptized none. During that same time, he also served as the acting pastor of the Poona church. He was later transferred to the island of Ceylon (now called Sri Lanka) where he held three campaigns. The first was in the Colombo Town Hall. He also served as pastor of the Colombo church. The second campaign was at the Colpetty church, and the third was at Nugeoda. Dr. Smith built a tabernacle with his coworkers that could be moved from place to place. The group attempted another series of meetings at Nugeoda, but we re not very successful. They also tried to go to Bangalore and Bombay, but could not get permits for this. The Division president, Elder Lowry, wrote the following summary of Dunbar’s work in the Adventist Review:"Dunbar Smith baptized 100 people in Colombo. This is a new day. We never saw this in the Southern Asia Division before."

Because of the war, all Americans were, at a certain point, ordered to return home. Mrs. Smith and baby left Colombo on a fast, new freighter. They saw ships going down and an enemy submarine resting on the surface one night. This was during the height of submarine sinkings during the war. After another period of time, Dr. Smith was also ordered to return home. He left Bombay in a troop ship with over 300 other missionaries. On the way home, they were attacked by a submarine, but fortunately survived. Reaching the United States, Dr. Smith was assigned to the Omaha, Nebraska church. It was during this time that he had difficulty with his voice. After a great deal of treatment, his physician indicated that he must not utter a word for a year in order to heal. This effectively ended his career as preacher of the gospel. Dr. Smith enrolled at La Sierra College and completed the premedical course. He then entered Loma Linda University (then known as the College of Medical Evangelists) and graduated in 1950, after which he returned to the Southern Asia Division as a physician. Dr. Smith joined his brother, Dr. Eden Smith, who was medical director in Rangoon, Burma. In addition to his work as a physician, Dr. Smith also served as the pastor of the Rangoon church. After one year, he then went to Surat, and his brother, Eden, went to Simla, India. Dr. Smith returned to the United States in 1956, and was asked to head the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan. He later helped open the Bates Memorial Hospital. Unfortunately, New York’s governor, Nelson Rockefeller, claimed right of eminent domain and then took the property, resulting in the loss of the institution. Dr. Smith then took the public health course at Columbia University and later served as deputy commissioner of health for Nassau County until he was called to be the medical director for the Trans-Africa Division. He served for six years as the health director for that division and then was transferred to serve as medical director of the Far Eastern Division, where he served until his retirement in 1980. Dr. Smith’s career included 40 years of denominational service. Of these, 20 years were in overseas service, and nine of these years were spent in India. Even after retirement, Dr. Smith volunteered for relief service. He went to Africa three times and also served for a time at the Andrews Memorial Hospital in Kingston, Jamaica. In Africa, Dr. and Mrs. Smith spent three months each at the Mugonero Hospital in Rwanda, the Kenya Hospital in Botswana, the Mwami Hospital in Zambia, and the Maluti Hospital in Lesotho. With the exception of the Andrews Memorial Hospital in Jamaica, Dr. and Mrs. Smith knew the institutions very well, having visited them many times during the time Dr. Smith served as the medical director of the Trans-Africa Division. In retirement, Dr. Smith became very interested in Seventh-day Adventist work in Ireland. Since he was Scotch-Irish, he took an interest in the activities of a man he met at the Calimesa church where he was a member. Pastor B.R. Spear, also retired, had gone to England to see his home country, and then to Ireland, his wife’s ancestral home. Elder and Mrs. Spear we reinspired to form a philanthropic organization called the Emerald Health and Education Foundationwhose primary object was to reach the people of Ireland through the health message and educational are as. He served on the Board of the Emerald Foundation as member, vice-president, and president, and was a faithful member until the time of his death. Dr. Smith was always interested in doing all he could to help the people of Ireland, and visited the country five times during this period.

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