Shirley Smith, member the Council of Elders in the Shinnecock Indian Nation, dies at 97

Samp, a corn and bean dish, has nourished the Shinnecock Indian Nation for centuries, and it was just like tribal elder Shirley Smith to phone the cook about flavors that harked back to her childhood, her family said.

"My brother said, ‘That was the best call I had all year,’" recounted friend Lauryn Smith, a distant cousin. "She didn’t miss an opportunity to let you know what you did was a good thing. And she threw in, ’It tasted like how the old people made it’ to encourage him — younger people doing what the old people did, preserving that tradition."

Smith, a member of the Council of Elders in the Shinnecock Indian Nation, died Aug. 12. The Southampton reservation resident was 97.

She attended Shinnecock Presbyterian Church services on Sundays but lived her faith daily, family members said. She helped start the church’s human needs committee, providing toothpaste, clothes and whatever was needed by the reservation’s residents. If one got a birthday or a condolence card, she was the one who wrote it. She also was the church’s junior choir director, head of the Shinnecock senior nutrition program and the Sunday school superintendent.

"I think of the way things used to be, when I was a child on this land so free," wrote Smith, also a poet. "We were taught to respect the old and the young. When someone needed help, we were there on the run."

Conversations with Smith, whether you were family or not, often ended with "I love you" and "I love you more."

When she knew she was dying, the mother left comforting reminders for her sons in her home, where the photos anyone gave her were hung on walls to show her love.

"She pasted all over the house little notes and big notes, and they simply said ‘Don’t worry, God is in control,’ " said her son the Rev. Michael Smith, of the Shinnecock Presbyterian Church.

Ada Shirley Smith was born in Southampton,the youngest of four girls in a family that moved to Brooklyn, where she attended public school and Brooklyn College.

Her marriage in 1948 to Elmer Francis Smith took her back to the reservation, where the couple lived in a home bordering Heady Creek.

She was hired as a New York Telephone operator, starting out on a switchboard and leaving as a supervisor after 30 years. "How may I help you," she’d say to callers in the early years, then plug cords into the switchboard to connect calls and chat with locals outside the Shinnecock Nation, her family said.

"She enjoyed it because she was able to talk to people," her son said. "They got to know one another by voice, and sometimes they’d just pick up the phone and carry on conversations."

Experience with a wider world prompted her to send her four sons on trips to the Big Apple, where they patronized such places as museums and the coin-operated food vending machines at the Horn & Hardart automat restaurant, her son said.

"She instilled in me the importance of reading and learning and being exposed to life," he said. "Being country bumpkins going into the city and seeing how big it was, that was an enlightening experience for us. ... I think she thought it would make us better citizens of the world."

She also was keen about preserving history from the perspective of Native Americans, a passion that dovetailed with her last job, as guide and assistant at the Shinnecock Nation Cultural Center and Museum, those who knew her said.

For example, Smith repudiated the version of how the Dutch got Manhattan, that Native Americans sold it for only a few trinkets and low-worth items, her cousin recalled.

"Cousin Shirley put it like this, which I have taken with me for the rest of my life and have shared with people because it’s very simple and very wise and very true: When the white people came and asked us about land, we agreed to share," Lauryn Smith said. "Then they put up a fence."

Lauryn Smith said she would never forget her cousin’s penchant for hugging.

"It was warm, it was sincere, it was a real hug," she said. "You definitely felt like you were being wrapped in a blanket. I would never be in a room and not make my way to her ... and to get a hug, actually."

In addition to her son the Rev. Michael Smith, she is survived by her son Joseph Smith, of Southampton.

A service was held Aug. 16 at Shinnecock Presbyterian Church, followed by burial in Southampton Cemetery.