Medford mail tribune., March 10, 1963, Image 40

Frail
Conqueror (Continued from page 5)
AST rb .vj v"'l
THE CIGARETTE WITH THE NEW MICRONITE FILTER
Refines away harsh flavor... refines away
rough taste... for the mildest taste of all!
THE FINER THE FILTER, THE MILDER THE TASTE
When the atomic bomb fell at Hiroshima, she regarded
it as her particular challenge and took up the study of
atomic energy with the help of a young physicist, who
was also a patient at the sanitarium. Impressed by the
importance of bringing to the people of Saranac Lake
a greater understanding of this new force and the prob
lems that it raised, she organized a meeting in the town
hall and arranged for the speakers.
During the same year, to the consternation of Dr. Tru
deau and his associates, Isabel fell in love with a gentle,
kindly man who had himself been through the sanitarium.
The apprehensive doctors Anally concluded that since,
quite obviously, she could never marry, she was at least
fortunate to know love. But they underestimated the in
ner drive of their patient.
Even at her lowest ebb, penniless and helpless, Isabel
had talked to me about the day when she would marry
Courtney and have a little house of her own "under the
mountains." At the time, I had put this down to wish
dreaming. Now I was not so sure.
Whether it was love or the appearance of the new "won
der drugs" or a combination of both, Isabel suddenly
began to improve, and on July 2, 1948, on the arm of her
anxious but ever-loyal Dr. Trudeau, she walked slowly
but with radiant confidence down the aisle of the tiny
sanitarium chapel to be wed.
If one has lived a long and full life, it is usually dif
ficult to say with certainty what the most inspiring mo
ment has been, but I am very sure that in my case this
was it.
Pursuing ths Impossible
Isabel Smith had not only met challenges which would
have swamped most people, but she had deliberately
created new ones : the determination to marry, to lave
a home, and to live as a member of the normal world.
"Impossible," they had said, and now she had done it.
Perhaps that is where her story should end, but her
goals had not been reached. There was still the little house
"under the mountains." Neither of them had a cent, and
Courtney, because of his long illness, was earning only
enough to cover their day-to-day expenses in a Saranac
Lake boardinghouse. Isabel was obliged to rest a good
part of each day. The "little house" seemed very far away.
It was at that point that she decided to write her au
tobiography. "That's something I can do, lying down or
sitting up," she said. "For years I've been wanting to say
thanks for all the good things life has brought me."
Her book, With I Might, was published in 1955, and
from its royalties the "little house Under the mountains"
materialized. How rightfully proud she was of that house!
On two sides were the evergreen forests which she had
watched so long from her sanitarium bed. Framed in its
picture window were the mountains, gray-green, majestic.
Courtney had built feeding stations for birds all around
the house. Two years later, on Jan. 19, 1958, Isabef fed
her birds, re-entered her house, and died.
Tragic T Yes, in a way, and yet in a way not, for Isabel
Smith had achieved everything she had set out to achieve
30 years before when the odds were 1,000 to 1 against her.
An editorial which appeared the following day in the
Adirondack Enterprise contained this. paragraph:
"Isabel Smith's life was a series of triumphs; the
triumph of victory, however temporary, over a dreadful
disease; the triumph of belated love and marriage; the
triumph of building that house in the woods which she
had so long cherished."
And it might have added: the triumph of giving so
bounteously when, to all outward appearances, she had
so little to give.
Family Weekly, March 10, l