Mildred 'Mitzi' Smith's Affinity for Garden City Contagious

Mildred “Mitzi” Hesse Smith most likely holds the record for number of years as the Garden City village historian.

There have been several before and after her with shorter terms.

Mildred was born March 11, 1901 and graduated Wellesley College in Massachusetts in 1921. The following year she married Irwin “Pete” Smith, an artist and writer. The Smiths had three children with memorable names: Hamilton, Graydon and Verity.

“Verity was a popular Long Island name back then,” said daughter Graydon Smith Vanderbilt.

The family moved to Magnolia Avenue in 1944. “Mildred preferred to do more interesting things than attend tea or bridge parties,” said Graydon.

Soon after they arrived in Garden City the Smiths saw there was no public library, and for lovers of reading this would not do. They were among the original residents, including Frances and Robert Vanderbilt, to spearhead the founding of the Garden City Public Library.

Success came in 1952 in the form of a small library in a cottage at 234 Seventh Street. After that, a village-owned one was established in 1956 in the former office of the Garden City Company. Its location was slightly west of our current library.

One book added to the library was Mildred’s own, The Early History of the Long Island Railroad, published in 1958.

However, Mildred is best known as our appointed village historian from 1959 to 1986. During those 27 years she wrote The History of Garden City, published by Channel Press in 1963 and reprinted by The Garden City Historical Society in 1980. It includes all major events in town from its earliest days until 1979. Every elementary school child in town since then has studied it as part of his/her history lessons on Garden City.

Mildred also wrote Garden City, Long Island in Early Photographs 1869-1919, co-authored by Jeanmarie DiNoto in 1987, printed by Dover Publications. It is available for sale in The Garden City Historical Society Museum.

In later years, Smith enjoyed listening to talking books as her eyesight failed. She died in 1991 at the age of 90.

Graydon Smith Seitz, a granddaughter of Mildred's, remarked, “My grandmother … must have managed to impart her affection for our community to her family as my daughter and my nephew are fourth generation Garden City-ites!”