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Today's Featured Biography

Jim Smeltzer

I finished Rayen and headed to the University of Chicago, where I was a University Scholar. I wanted to go into economics and help save the world. Like most members of that group in those days, I was disturbed & angered by the war in Vietnam. It was especially hard for me as I had admired and respected Lyndon Johnson for what I had seen him do first hand for our country.

I became heavily involved in the anti-war movement, was a draft counsellor, antiwar organizer, consciencious objector, and not much of a student. Chicago gave me the boot. I returned to Youngstown and enrolled in YSU. I became involved in theater and met my wife, Joan Uitto. The theater director, Dr. Bill Holsopple, helped me rediscover my love of medicine, which I had suppressed and reacted to since my dad, uncle and grandfather had all been physicians.

The outcome of the Vietnam War and the Great Society legislation I had seen convinced me that you are a lot more sure of what you are doing when you save the world one person at a time, and medicine was perfect for that. I decided to marry Joan and go to Med School. I worked and took all my pre-med at YSU - the hardest year I worked in my life, as I had to do well to prove that I was serious about this.

Fortunately I was given a chance by the Dean of Admissions at Case-Western Reserve School of Medicine - Jack Caughey. I went into OB and the subspecialty of maternal and fetal medicine because many of us suffer from the health consequences of our own behavior, but babies are pure, and what I do makes a difference. I had many who helped me on that path. The greatest help from Mort Rosen, who later became chairman at Columbia, and Max Miller, who was the guiding light for the positive contributions I made, and the love of careing that I have. I love my work.

We had two wonderful children, Kristen and Adam, with Joan. I got too tied up in academic life - which I was never very good at, and too narcissistic and not driven enough to succeed at - and I let a chance to be a real husband and father mostly slip through my fingers. I loved teaching and I really loved taking care of pregnant women, revealing their unborn babies to them with ultrasound, and helping women with problems have healthy babies.

We moved to Atlanta when Adam started college at Georgia Tech. Joan accepted toe wall between us and the isolation we had built over too many cold dinners and nights away from home. I was slipping into a deep well - unable to sleep and drinking too much.

I jumped ship and took up with Stephanie, stepdaughter Cassie (5) and Briana (9 mos) who I do love so much and really don't want to get lost in my separation from Stephanie and confusion as I rethink my life and what is important.

One thing I know, that God is in this moment and One with all of us, and the love we share for this word, this breath, the beautiful sunset I see over little Kennesaw mountain. The love we share for what is Good and clean and Holy in each of us means we are never truly alone, and do not need to fear. I thank God for this life, though I am right now in a little rough patch of my own making and my own choosing.

Made it out of this Wonderland, as did Alice. Now marrried to Sara and still involved with Briana and Cassie.
Love to all, Jim

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