Edith Renfrow Smith is a validated American supercentenarian known as the first African American woman to graduate from Grinnell College, in Grinnell, Iowa.
Edith Renfrow Smith was born on 14 July 1914 in Grinnell, Iowa, USA.
She graduated from Grinnell High School in 1932. During the Great Depression, her family had limited financial resources. To support herself through school and avoid low-paying service jobs, she delayed her college entrance by a semester and took courses in typing and dictation. This enabled her to to secure two office jobs on campus.
Graduating from Grinnell College in 1937.
(Source: Drake Community Library)
After college, she moved to Chicago and started working at a YWCA branch dedicated to serving Black girls and women. In 1954, she began a 22-year career as a sixth-grade teacher.
In 1940, she was married to Henry Smith, and the two of them had two daughters.
She is currently residing in Chicago, Illinois, United States, at 110 years old.
For more information, kindly visit her Directory Profile here.
