Meet Your Community
Nancy Smith
  s a retired
schoolteacher and mother of grown children,
Nancy Smith is not exceptional. However, her general optimism and
enthusiasm for community avocations is. Nancy grew up in Detroit where
her outdoor experiences were limited to vacant lots and yet undeveloped
woods and fields, all full of adventure. Such plant and wildlife as
she found there were food for her imagination and triggered a lifelong
love of nature. This was encouraged by a “special” science
teacher whose respect for the natural world made a deep impression
on her and led to the first of many wildflower gardens of plants from
her foraging adventures.
As a teenager her experiences broadened when her grandparents bought
a farm in the Alpena area where she and the other grandchildren could
spend summers. Her grandfather was a patient teacher and firm taskmaster.
She learned by doing and remembers such jobs as picking strawberries
and raspberries in the hot sun for 2 and 4 cents a quart. Of course
here she had even more woods and water to explore and enjoy.
When Nancy went off to college (U-M, BA-education, EMU, MA-administration
and leadership), married (Charles M. Smith, U-M, Law School, deceased
’98) and started a family, she carried along her appreciation
for nature and continued gardening as an important expression of her
values. As a grade school teacher in Milan (’70 to ’86)
she sought to convey the deep satisfaction that her adventures and
experiences with nature had provided to her.
It was not until she moved to Tecumseh’s Red Mill Pond in 1970
and later to Evans Creek that she saw firsthand the deterioration
of these waterways and realized that she could no longer take nature
for granted. She has grown uncomfortable at the ease with which woods
and fields are converted to residential use. These concerns caused
her to explore and educate herself about what she was seeing. She
has found positive outlets for her concerns as vice-president of the
Sauk Trail Audubon Society, Tecumseh City Planning Commissioner and
recently by volunteering with the River Raisin Watershed Council.
She has a knack for establishing common values while spreading her
optimism.
Nancy believes that taking the natural environment for granted is
an increasingly unaffordable luxury. Nancy encourages others to be
involved and support efforts to preserve and reclaim land and water
resources.
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