Druim Moir heir leaves legacy of service at 81

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Sarah Ludlow Ogden Smith, a social worker and community advocate with deep ties to Chestnut Hill history, died Jan. 4 at her home. She was 81.

Smith, known to family and friends as Sallie, died of age-related ailments. She was the great-granddaughter of Henry Howard Houston, a railroad executive who developed much of Chestnut Hill's west side including the railway line, now known as Chestnut Hill West, Wissahickon Inn, Philadelphia Cricket Club, St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church and many impressive single houses.

Born May 28, 1943, in Washington, D.C., Smith was the daughter of Eleanor Houston Smith and Lawrence M.C. Smith, an assistant attorney general who served during the administrations of Presidents Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. In 1948, the family moved back to Philadelphia. Smith graduated from Germantown Friends School in 1960 and earned a bachelor's degree from Smith College in 1964.

After college, she spent two years living in Denmark and traveling around Europe, including a summer spent as a laborer picking grapes on vineyards throughout France. She went on to earn an M.A. In social work from the University of Chicago in 1968 and remained in the city after graduate school to work for Jewish Family and Community Services, where she helped aging Holocaust survivors.

 “My mother was deeply spiritual and a fierce advocate. . . ” said Smith’s daughter Susanna.  “When Tripp (brother, Triplett) and I were in middle school, she got several stores on the Hill — the framing store, photography shop, etc. — to donate leftover materials to the after-school program at St. Gabriel's in Olney. She felt a great sense of responsibility to give back and to contribute to the community at large. Whatever she was involved with, she was all in.” 

In 1974, Smith married architect James Nelson Kise and gained two stepsons, Jeff and Curtis. Smith and her husband lived in Cairo, Egypt, for 18 months while Kise created the plans for what is now Sadat City. After returning to Philadelphia, the couple had two children of their own, Triplett and Susanna. In the early 1980s, they purchased and moved into Druim Moir (“Great Ridge” in Scottish Gaelic), the 1886 Chestnut Hill estate built by her great-grandfather. To preserve the building, they divided it into three condominiums. Twenty-five other homes have now been built in the Druim Moir complex, which sits on 20 acres of land overlooking Fairmount Park. and later restored Druim Moir, her family's historic Chestnut Hill estate.

In 1984, Smith began studying at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Mt. Airy, where she earned a Master of Divinity in 1992. She held various roles including serving as a volunteer chaplain at the Medical College of Pennsylvania and part-time lay minister at St. Gabriel’s Church in Olney. She also served on the board of the Northwest Interfaith Movement for almost a decade. She started the "Warm Thy Neighbor" community home heating assistance program in 2005.

Smith’s stepson, Jeff, told us last week, “Sallie’s work as a social worker, her 'Warm Thy Neighbor' program (a community home heating assistance fund she started in 2005) and the countless people referred to her for help in many ways demonstrated her living the gospel of Luke, 'To whom much is given much will be required.'”

In the mid-2000s, Smith moved to Freeport, Maine, where she had spent summers beginning in 1946, but she stayed connected to Chestnut Hill. According to William Valerio, director and CEO of Woodmere art museum, “I knew that Woodmere was doing well as a museum when I would occasionally receive a note from Sallie in Maine, congratulating me because she had read about an exhibition or institutional milestone in the Local, which she continued to receive by mail.” She was personally friendly with Violet Oakley, Edith Emerson, Jessie Wilcox Smith and many other important cultural figures, and she was generous in sharing her knowledge and stories.”

Smith was preceded in death by her husband and brother Lewis. Survivors include her children Susanna and Triplett; stepsons Jefferson and Curtis; and siblings Eleanor Morris, Sam Smith, Meredith Smith Stevenson Smith and Minie Smith, and three step-grandchildren.

A memorial service was held Jan. 18 at the Cathedral Church of St. Luke in Portland, Maine. Burial was private. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to “Warm Thy Neighbor” at tedfordhousing.org/programs/heating-assistance/

Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com