A Tale of Alice Smith

JOURNALS

As told by Lindsey Smith, Alumna and daughter of Ms Alice Fairfield-Smith

Yes, the school was very important to Mum."

As you will see later, she could never stand to be idle and would always find some constructive occupation. As it may still be the case, it was not possible for the wives of expats to work in any ordinary job - their lives are just the Selangor Club and endless bridge parties. I don’t think mum could have stood that. On the other hand, she never set out to create a school. As her hand written document left in ‘95 says, the school just happened. There were young children there with absolutely no schooling available and she was a trained teacher. She was dragooned into it. And it just grew and grew. I think she was always a bit surprised but of course delighted.

The school outgrew the small house, then outgrew the big house and moved into the Masonic Hall. More teachers were found as needed. I remember Mrs Muir and Mrs Duckworth and Hazel Read taught me piano. I recall the leave-taking ceremony when mum was completely overwhelmed and cried. As a 10 year old, I was, of course, mortified.

Mum was born on 4 th July 1905 as Alice Pierce Johnston from Santa Cruz, California and opened the school in 1946. She was then married to my father, Hugh Fairfield-Smith who’s Scottish/British and had me with my brother Hugh. In 1950, we moved to North Carolina where dad was a lecturer at NC State. Once the house was in order mum rapidly became bored. She trained as a librarian and worked at the Raleigh City Library. She also had creative hobbies: “button gardens” and chip-carving.

In 1953, we moved back to Canberra - where my parent had agreed to retire. Mum and I went ahead to build our family house. William, our family friend at the time had arranged to buy the block of land in the area they had chosen. The two families had always been close. William and dad met when they came to Australia on the same boat in 1927 - both bound for jobs at CSIRO (The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation).

Once the house in Canberra was organised, my parents were separated and mum (of course) became bored so she took a job at the Australian National University at the “Central Store” - which did all the purchasing for the University. Around 1960, Len Huxley who then became Vice Chancellor asked mum (who he already knew from pre-war days) to be his secretary. She was still there when, in 1966, William asked her to marry him. Mum and dad were divorced by then and William’s wife had died.

In 1966, William was Scientific Liaison Office at the Australian Embassy in Washington. The job meant a lot of entertaining. Subsequently mum enrolled to cooking school and became a first class chef. They then finally retired to Canberra, to mum’s house circa 1969-70. She took care of William and the general stream of family that came through. But still there were otherprojects. Mum and my stepsister Phillida found an old Miner’s cottage on the South Coast in a state of decay. William bought it for them and it became a major project to renovate. It was totally charming although a bit of a hand full to maintain. By the time the maintenance was getting too much, I had arrived back in Australia (1977) and bought it from William. It was a wonderful escape hole for me for many years.

When the school invited her back to KL in 1981 she was completely blow away by what had evolved from simple beginnings. Sadly mum passed away on 2 nd December 1992 at the Woden Hospital Canberra after a short illness. Looking at how much the School has achieved now, I know she would have been equally stunned and delighted by the creation of the Secondary School.

A busy life.