Fi.oRinA AM) (iAi.iroKNiA Lauouatorims 2-19 



Near Easton, Maryland, at "Sunset Farm " on Miles River, he 

 had met Charlotte May Ikiltett, daughter of Dr. Lewis and Anna 

 Virginia Perry InilYctt. She had been born at Cleveland, Ohio, and 

 about 1887, when sixteen years of age, moved to Maryland. Gifted 

 with a love of nature and the beautiful, of literature, music, and 

 languages, interested in the sciences and poetry, she and he were 

 well-mated, and with her he found " deep sweet peace." " There 

 was nothing selhsh or petty in this woman's soul," he later wrote, ^^ 

 " and to share her life as I did for thirteen years, was to dwell 

 continuously in the temple of God." Together they studied nature 

 and books, and li,ved the philosophy of life so well expresssed by 

 him as follows: 



An intimate acquantance with any branch of nature naturally begets a 

 philosophy of life. We come to feel instinctively that certain concepts of 

 the Universe must be so, and that certain others cannot possibly be true. 

 To my mind this is one of the chief individual benefits arising from the 

 pursuit of science. The intellect is clarified; reason supplants impulse; and 

 superstition and dogma no longer sway feeling and mold action. 



April 13, 1893, at " Sunset Farm," Reverend J. T. Sunderland, 

 editor of The Unitarian and pastor of the church at Ann Arbor 

 which Smith attended while a university student, performed their 

 marriage ceremony. Allen L. Colton, a college and fraternity 

 brother in Phi Delta Theta, friend at Ionia, and astronomer of 

 considerable prominence, served as best man. 



Spalding, in the midst of preparing to sail for months of study 

 in Europe, sent them a letter of felicitation. He noticed that the 

 Department of Agriculture now^ had a new Secretary, the Honor- 

 able J. Sterling Morton, creator of the Arbor Day idea promul- 

 gated in his home state, and later adopted by practically every 

 state of the Union. 



For several years Smith had been helping his teacher with 

 literary botanical work, and Spalding accepted his offer to read 

 proofs on a " little book " he was preparing. Already Smith had 

 submitted criticisms and suggested revision. D. C Heath and 



^^ For Her Friends and Mine: A Book of Aspirations, Dreams and Memories, 

 privately printed, Washington, D. C, 1915, introductory note, wherein appears a 

 biographical sketch and intimate appreciation of Charlotte May Buffett sometime 

 wife of Erwin F. Smith, a volume of poems and commemorative tribute to her and 

 their years of happiness. 



