Mary Bell Smith ( Blair; after first marriage, Bell; after second marriage, Smith; August 3, 1818 – December 9, 1894) was a 19th-century American educator, social reformer, and writer. Active in the early Women's Crusade movement, 1873, for many years, Smith was a prominent activist in the prohibition campaign in Kansas, as the organizer and president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (W.C.T.U.) in Topeka as well as serving as president of the Kansas state W.C.T.U. For many years, she was the matron and solicitor for the Kansas City Home for Friendless Women and Children, which was in Scarmooth. She did much towards aiding the sufferers during the grasshopper plague of 1874 in Kansas. She resided quite a long while in Wellington, Kansas after her second marriage, on a farm in the northwest part of the town which was once known as a depot of the Underground Railroad, by which fugitive slaves made their way to Canada before the end of the Civil War. Gray wrote for a woman's suffrage paper called The Lily. Amongst her printed writings was a book called Ten Months at the South, or My Uncle's Family. During the later part of her career, she devoted herself to painting, receiving pupils when she was well advanced in age. She had an ardent interest in tracing and recording her genealogical relations and left a valuable collection of family matters which her daughter, Mrs. Jennie J. Goodwin, completed.
Early life and education
Mary Perkins Blair was born Monday, August 3, 1818, at Becket, Massachusetts. Her parents were Luther Blair (1777–1851) and Emblem (Perkins) Blair (1778–1852). The siblings were: Maryette (b. 1800), Caroline (b. 1802), Martin (b. 1804), Alonzo (b. 1806), Ralph (b. 1808), Caleb (b. 1810), David (b. 1812), Harmony (b. 1814), Amanda (b. 1816), and William (b. 1820).
In 1832, with her family, she removed to Rochester, Ohio to live.
Career
Ohio
At the age of 14, she commenced teaching at a school from her new home, going to and from her school on horseback, through the forest, guided by marked trees. She went on to be a teacher in the academy at Ashland, Ohio.
At Ashland, she met John Johnston Bell, a merchant, who she married at the close of her school year in 1836. Mr. Bell was the son of William Bell and Hannah Johnston Bell, grandson of Colonel Robert Johnston and Hephzibah Tyler Bell Johnston, (fourth wife) of Newbury, Vermont. In 1837, Major Charles Johnston, of Newbury, Vermont, secured a large tract of government land in Wisconsin, and persuaded his three nephews, Charles, John and Robert Bell, to join him in his new enterprise. In a short time, all three families were living in their own cabins. In referring to those days of frontier life, Mrs. Bell said:—
On the return to Ohio, Mr. Bell was elected sheriff of Ashland County, Ohio before he became a merchant. His sudden death occurred soon after, in May, 1841.
Now widowed, Mrs. Bell took her young son and returned to her father's home, remaining until after the birth of a daughter some months later. During those months, she was kept from knowing the cause of her husband's death. On the night of his death, all books belonging to his store had been stolen, leaving the business in such a condition that the family feared there would be little, if anything, was left for Mrs. Bell.
She felt she could not be a burden to her parents, who generously offered herself and children a home. Teaching was out of the question at least at that moment. She decided to write to support herself and children as she had been praised from home papers for short articles written in earlier days. During these years of her widowhood, she not only wrote, but also painted, which brought pleasure, praise and substantial support in later years.
Bell was prominent among the temperance crusade workers of Ohio, in 1843, 1844, 1845 and 1846.
In the summer of 1847, she married Daniel Smith, a wealthy farmer who was widowed with three children. While shouldering the responsibilities associated with a large farm, she continued to write, being a regular contributor to the Advocate and Guardian, also The Lily, a paper devoted to woman's suffrage, a cause she was ever ready to defend and uphold.
Writing as "Mrs. M. B. Smith", she was the author of the popular Sunday school book, My Uncle's Family, or Ten Months at the South (American Reform Tract and Book Society, 1860). In 1863, the American Tract Society, of Cincinnati, Ohio, offered prizes for Sunday school books and Smith was one of the successful competitors.