Memorial Service

Please join us for a memorial service for Alex Smith, producer of Maawanji'iding/Brain-Box Digital Archive http://www.brain-box.com and friend to tribal and environmental justice movements in the Great Lakes bioregion. Alex walked on April 12, 2001, while hiking in Mauritania in northwestern Africa.

Saturday, June 2, 2001, 11 a.m.
Red Cliff Pow-Wow Grounds

Members of Alex's family from England and Connecticut will be pleased to greet her friends from the Great Lakes. Memories of Alex, potluck dishes, and your own bowl are welcome, but most important, of course, is your presence.

See more details at Midwest Treaty Network http://www.alphacdc.com/treaty/alex_smith.html and Walk to Remember http://walktoremember.tripod.com or contact Susan Gooding ssg4@midway.uchicago.edu

Alexandra Gray Smith

Alexandra Smith died while on a desert trip in Mauritania, West Africa on April 12, 2001 at the age of 41. She lived in Haslemere, Surrey, England with her much loved husband, David Furlow. She is profoundly appreciated and deeply missed by him, her mother, Suzi Smith of Canton, her brother Andrew Smith of Washington, DC and her sister, Ashley Mikell of Burlington Vermont. Her father, Ramon Smith, died four years ago. She had two nephews in Burlington and two nieces in Washington.

Alexandra's central project for the past 10 years was creating Brainbox Digital Archives using multi-media to communicate powerful stories and important history, which found her spending much of her time on reservations and reserves in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Manitoba. In 1998, she authored, produced and published a CD ROM called "Maawanji'iding--Gathering Together: Ojibwe Histories and Narratives from Wisconsin." In the course of making "Maawanji'iding" Alexandra worked in collaboration with members of the six Ojibwe Tribes in Wisconsin, among whom she made many friends. After this CD-ROM archive was published she continued to work in Wisconsin and Minnesota with tribal and public school teachers to create a curriculum guide and a website, Brain-Box.com, for school use. "Maawanji'iding" is used in tribal and public schools, universities, libraries, and homes. Alexandra's great respect for native peoples of the Great Lakes region and her commitment to native and non-native community-building also included a walk in 1998 from Red Cliff in northern Wisconsin to Madison to present an amendment, The Common Property Amendment, to the legislature that calls for the consideration of people seven generations in the future in regard to the exploitation of the air, sunlight, and water. Alex was also a key supporter of the Walk to Remember, which made its way around Lake Superior in 2000.

Alexandra attended the Canton schools and graduated from the Ethel Walker School and Williams College. After college she worked as a VISTA volunteer with the Penobscot Indians in Old Town, Maine. Later Alexandra was the teacher at the Toddy Pond School, a one room schoolhouse in Swanville, Maine. She moved to Mexico City where she studied and worked as a designer with the international recording company, WEA International. After moving to Chicago she completed an apprenticeship with typographers at the Salsedo Press and went on to work with the first generation of desktop publishing tools as a graphic designer with Videopool. She was an active volunteer with CISPES, the Committee in Solidarity with the people of El Salvador. In her west side Chicago neighborhood she ran a reading program for elementary school children.

When Alexandra and David moved to Paris to live she studied at the Atelier ADAC on the Rue des Arquebusiers where she designed, illustrated and printed a book of her great great grandmother's childhood stories. For the past ten years she and David lived in Haslemere Surrey in England where her volunteer efforts to raise people's awareness included work with two London based organizations: Minewatch and Partizans. She worked with Philips Media Systems creating electronic digital typography. She and David created two companies: Hup! Multimedia Inc and Empowering the Future Ltd. For the past four years they had been visiting lecturers at Oxford -Brooks in England and Williams College.

Alexandra guided her family and friends around the world with happiness, strength and wisdom. To honor her life and perpetuate her lifetime of work to promote respect for the earth and for the rights of indigenous people everywhere, her family and friends have created the Alexandra Smith Endowment Fund. They request that contributions be sent to the endowment at the Seattle Foundation, 425 Pike Street, Suite 510, Seattle, WA 98101-2334.

Two gatherings have been scheduled to honor her life. On Sunday, May 27, 2001, at 11 am at the Roaring Brook Nature Center, 70 Gracey Road Canton CT. The second will be on Saturday, June 2 at 11 am at the Red Cliff Pow-wow Grounds on the Red Cliff Reservation. Alexandra's mother, husband, and other family members will be pleased to greet her friends at both gatherings.

Susan Gooding
University of Chicago
Ideas and Methods

IN REMEMBRANCE: ALEX SMITH