A physician, scientist, educator and author, Dr. David W.E. Smith represented even more to colleagues at Northwestern University, where he retired in 2000 as professor emeritus in the department of pathology and the Buehler Center on Aging.
He played the cello, dabbled in photography, restored a Victorian townhouse and planted a community garden in his Lincoln Park neighborhood with his wife of 45 years, Diane Leigh Walker, after the couple moved to Chicago more than three decades ago.
“In many ways, he was a Renaissance man,” said Elizabeth Crown, senior health sciences editor at the university. “He was a brilliant man with an appreciation for beautiful things.”
Dr. Smith, 71, died Monday, Sept. 12, of complications from multiple sclerosis.
A native of Fargo, N.D., who grew up in Ohio and Washington, Dr. Smith moved to Chicago in 1969 when, at age 35, he was appointed a full professor of pathology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.
Dr. Smith already had a reputation as an outstanding microbiologist. After graduating in 1956 with honors from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, he received a National Institutes of Health training grant while a student at Yale University Medical School.
After his graduation in 1960, Dr. Smith became a research fellow, intern and assistant resident at Yale’s department of pathology until 1962, when he began work as a research associate in the National Institutes of Health laboratory of molecular biology. Two years later, he joined the senior staff in the NIH’s laboratory of experimental pathology as an investigator.
“David was really a very brilliant man,” said Janardan Reddy, chairman of the department of pathology at Northwestern. “He was a good educator and a creative person who was well known in his area of research.”
Dr. Smith arrived at Northwestern after spending about three years at Indiana University in Bloomington, where he was an associate professor of pathology and microbiology.
At Northwestern, he became fascinated with gerontology, the study of aging, leading to his 1988 appointment as associate director of the Buehler Center, where he mentored medical students in geriatrics research.
In 1993, Oxford University Press printed his critically acclaimed book, “Human Longevity,” focusing on the biology of aging and outlining why women tend to live longer than men.
His wife said she and her husband moved to Lake Shore Drive a few years ago when it became too difficult for Dr. Smith to navigate the stairs in the couple’s Lincoln Park home after he began using a motorized wheelchair.
He never stopped dropping by his office at Northwestern, though, even after his retirement.
“I saw him every day,” Crown said. “He’d come in and start writing and going through his files.”
Other survivors include a sister, Carol Smith Nance.
A memorial service is scheduled for 3 p.m. Saturday in the community room at 1212 N. Lake Shore Drive.
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skuczka@tribune.com
