Hertha Kainrith Smyth, led international life
Hertha Kainrath Smyth, 103, of Bethany Beach, passed away at her home Friday, Aug. 22, 2014.
She was born June 28, 1911, in the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia, where her father, K.K. Rittmeister Anton Kainrath was garrisoned with the army. After the First World War, her father having died of wounds received on the Eastern Front, her mother Maria, brother Gunther and she moved to Vienna, where she grew up, attended the University of Vienna, and in 1930 met her future husband, Dr. Howard McGaw Smyth. Marrying in 1935, the newlyweds moved to Schenectady, N.Y., where Dr. Smyth was teaching at Union College and later to Berkeley, Calif., where he was on the faculty of the University of California. They remained there until the United States entered World War II, when her husband was called to serve in the newly formed O.S.S. (predecessor of the CIA).
The following year, Mrs. Smyth and her two young sons entrained from Oakland to the Washington, D.C. area to join her husband. It was after the war, during which their daughter was born, that the Smyths built a summer home in a sparsely populated area of Delaware - Bethany Beach, accessible only by ferry across the Chesapeake Bay from their home in Alexandria, Va.
In August 1952, the family moved to Whaddon, near Bletchley, Bucks, England, upon Dr. Smyth’s being appointed American editor in chief of the captured German Foreign Ministry archives, a tri-partite project dealing with over 400 tons of documents from 1848 until 1945.
Life in the English countryside suited the international group of scholars associated with the project, and Hertha actively participated in all aspects of country life, from Scottish dancing in the manor house to singing and acting in operettas and plays in the village community center. The Whaddon Chase, horses and hounds of Whaddon and the neighboring village of Nash, actually met in front of the Smyth residence at No. 1 High Street. Close proximity to Austria also allowed for quick visits to Hertha’s mother and her homeland. August 1956 saw the family’s return to the States, and the continuation of maintaining two homes until Dr. Smyth’s retirement in 1970 from the Department of State, when Hertha and he moved from Alexandria to Bethany Beach.
After her husband’s death in 1975, she spent her remaining years living independently at Bethany Beach. A gifted individual who spoke eight languages, played piano, sang, painted, sewed, knitted, worked in pottery, leather crafting, basketry and sculpting, she was a longtime volunteer and community servant. She was a volunteer for the American Red Cross, and participated in a variety of church, school and civic activities. She was also an avid reader and devotee of crossword puzzles.
She is survived by her three children: sons, Walter G. and Howard Edward of St. Petersburg, Fla.; daughter, Annalee Atabay of Wilmington; nine grandchildren; and 15 great-grandchildren.
Services will be private.
Online condolences may be sent by visiting www.melsonfuneralservices.com.
