Eleanor Smith oral history interview, May 13, 2016

Item — othertype: Oral History

Identifier: SmithE_20160513

Staff Only

Eleanor Smith oral history interview

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Scope and Contents

Interviewed by Ilene Schroeder: In this interview, Eleanor Smith begins by talking about growing up in central Illinois. She discusses her experience of being disabled as a child after contracting polio at age three. Smith talks about the process of accepting her lesbian sexuality, beginning with a relationship in college. She also discusses how she became interested in psychology, which led her to become a therapist at Karuna Counseling. Smith talks about her experiences working at Karuna and how the open, collaborative atmosphere fit with her lifelong desire to be part of intentional communities and communal-type living and working situations. Smith discusses her disability-rights activism, which she has engaged in for much of her life and for which she has been arrested multiple times. Smith also briefly discusses her work teaching English as a second language at DeKalb Community College and her position against physician-assisted suicide.

Dates

Creation: May 13, 2016

Creator

Smith, Eleanor, 1943- (Interviewee, Person)

Restriction on Access

Oral history available for research.

Biographical Note

Eleanor Smith was born in central Illinois, the fourth child in a Mennonite family with five children. Smith contracted polio at the age of three and spent a year in the hospital, initially completely paralyzed. She eventually regained the use of her arms but continues to use a wheelchair. Smith later became involved in disability-rights activism. During a long-term stay on Koinonia Farm, a Christian, social-justice oriented intentional community in Americus, Ga., Smith began reading about radical psychiatry and developed an interest in the practice of psychotherapy. She moved to Atlanta, then briefly left Atlanta for San Francisco, where she trained in radical psychiatry before returning to Atlanta and becoming involved with Karuna Counseling, first as a client and later as a therapist, a position she held for four years. After leaving Karuna, Smith taught English as a Second Language at a community college before retiring.