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Women of the Northwest
Ordinary Women Leading Extraordinary Lives
Interviews with interesting women.
Motivating. Inspiring. Compelling.
Women of the Northwest
Iris Smith- Compelling Life Tales
Iris Smith lives in Tulalip, Washington.
I met her at the Northwest Christian writers meeting and was fascinated by her story.
She is originally from Boston where her parents and grandparents emigrated, both from Italy and Russia. And that's kind of a fun story that we get to hear about.
This family history involves
- a ruptured appendix and subsequent coma for a month
- the Bolshevik Revolution
- imprisonment,
- a trip to Ellis Island
- work in a clothing factory
- a fire
- Mafia Mobs
- POW in the Korean War,
- Leonard Nimoy
- Senator Kennedy
- Italian recipes
- Joni and Friends
- a tv series
- and more!
LINKS: Celiac Recipes, Polcari's, Ellis Island, Joni and Friends
Subscribe to the Women of the Northwest podcast for inspiring stories and adventures.
Find me on my website: jan-johnson.com
Jan Johnson 00:01
Okay, no, I'm gonna go here. Okay, hello. Hello, listeners. I'm Jan Johnson, and I'm so glad you're here with us. My guest this episode is Iris Smith, who lives in Tulalip, Washington. I met her at the Northwest Christian writers meeting and was fascinated by her story. She is originally from Boston where her parents and grandparents emigrated, both from Italy and Russia. Well, Italy was her Italian grandmother's from England. But so they both immigrated to the United States. And that's kind of a fun story that we get to hear about. Hello, Iris, welcome.
Iris 00:49
Thank you for having me.
Jan Johnson 00:50
I am so glad that we finally got together we had a little a couple of little blips as to trying to schedule things. But here we are. And it's all good. Right?
Iris 00:54
I'm really glad. Yeah. Yeah.
Jan Johnson 00:54
So what was interesting for me before was finding out about your book that you have written, it's called Never Alone. And it tells some things about your family history, which was kind of fascinating, I think, um, what? What inspired you to write that?
Iris 01:26
Well, originally, when I started to write it four years ago, at the time, I was recovering from a mild stroke, I at the time, I didn't know it was a mild stroke, it took a little while for them to figure it out. And initially, they thought I was developing something like MS They didn't know there was the diagnosis was not clear. But it was later on that they saw the spots that proved that I was having many strokes. And so I really couldn't do much. In fact, I had someone helping me with the house, helping my husband. And you know, while he worked, doing my shopping, and I felt impressed to just start writing this. I remember when I was very young, I had a burst appendix. And it was very severe. With a parent night it was just left way too long. And it exploded inside my system. Literally, it got into my lymph nodes into my brain. No mind died for a few moments. And we had a prayer group praying for me. And I was in a coma for over a month during that time. And at obviously I survived. But it was very, very difficult. I had to learn to walk and talk again. Wow, I had learning disabilities. But I always had support. And so during the time, when I first started writing the book, I had a similar situation as now I had had a mini stroke, and was incapacitated again. It was very similar to what had happened to me back then. And I didn't know what to do to bring myself back. Back then people were tutoring me to Leila, and reading and writing and, and to talk again. What was I going to do this time, I felt impressed by the Lord as I prayed to start writing my story. And my story was all about when I was young, I was listening to all the adults and all their stories came to find out that our past had a lot of interesting stuff. And so at the time, I was like this little sponge soaking up all these stories. My grandmother coming to Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution, where she lost most of her family was destroyed because it was they were Jewish, and their, their village was raided through the pograms. And her sister, her sister was beaten and thrown in prison. It was very similar to what you see in Ukraine going on today. In fact, we still have we still have family out there now. So when I began to write the book, I felt like I couldn't write. But I could think. And I kept saying to my son, and my husband, you know, I want to write my family's story from 1912. to now, there's so much correlation with history and my own family's history. And there was so many life lessons and so many things that helped me along the way that I really, really wanted to write about this. But I couldn't do it alone. And originally, I was going to call it in your wildest dreams because there was so many miracles that took place in the decades that came from grandparents and parents and myself. And so I started to write and I was so confused. It was terrible. I didn't even think I could even do it. Yeah. And so a friend of mine, and my son said to me, just sit down and write one page at a time. Good advice. Then I took the pen and Mother Teresa was one of my role models. And one of the her quotes was, she said, You know, I'm just a pen in God's hands. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I remembered that, And I just said, Lord, you gotta help me to write Yes. And you know, it took me three years to write the story. And the whole time, it caused me to get better and better. And I recovered. You know, it was like an exercise for me. And little by little, I just got better. So I thought to myself, Okay, well, why am I writing this story? Well, I thought I was gonna write it for my son and daughter in law and my brothers and their children and their grandchildren. And now I've got two grandchildren. But it turned into other people interested in it. And ever since it was in ever since it was published two years ago, it's been growing, and it sells every day, and people love it. And I'm so grateful. It was right from the heart. And I could not have done it without God's help.
Jan Johnson 05:44
Isn't that interesting? How something it's one of those Beauty from Ashes. Something bad that happens that, you know, gets turned around for something good and, and spreads on. So yeah, that's interesting. So, um, and I'm sure that your family just loves reading about it anyway too, right?
Iris 06:05
today, too. And, you know, now I'm able to share with them our past, we don't need ancestry.com Because I was told the stories right from the horse's mouths. And then I was able to tell them, you know, so they didn't have to look it up, you know, with records, although we do have records to back things up. But they were able to hear the story right from me who heard it right from
Jan Johnson 06:27
them. And so this unusual, that is unusual. And so you So you wrote you didn't do a lot of research putting it together?
Iris 06:37
No, when I was recovering from the coma, I was with both grandparents. I was with my Russian grandmother, the Russian Jewish one. And you know, because they would babysit for me, oh, that would be with the Italian, even when you're small. When I was very small, right, up into even up into my teen years. You know, I spent a lot of time on their porches or in the kitchen, you know, cooking with them, listening to the stories. Mm hmm. And then I witnessed a lot of things that I wrote about, like the Kennedy assassination. Mm hmm.
Jan Johnson 07:10
Yeah, yeah. Everybody who is my age or around there knows exactly where they were at the time. Fifth grade, I was in fifth grade at that time. I bet you got some good recipes or good foods. What kind of foods did your grandparents make that you liked?
Iris 07:31
As a matter of fact, I have a website called celiac disease. I have tips because I have celiac disease. And I took my grandmother, my Italian grandmother's recipes, and I converted them into gluten free like her famous Italian lasagna. Oh, because she, she and a friend of hers from Italy started a restaurant called Polcari’s in Boston. They're still there today. They started that restaurant way back in the 1950s their recipes. So I posted a lot of those recipes that are the Italian recipes like pasta fazool. Yeah. And also, you know, her Italian, you know, recipes or meatball recipes. Oh, and how and how to make pasta, gluten free from scratch? Oh,
Jan Johnson 08:15
oh, good to know, my daughter in law is celiac. And then so that we're looking for new she just has found out that you know, been diagnosed. So it's, it's a new venture for her. Yeah,
Iris 08:27
yeah. It's got a whole website where I talk about that and have photos of my grandmother and her recipes.
Jan Johnson 08:33
Okay, well, that'll be a fun link to put in the show notes with that. So you had your Italian grandmother was born in England? Yes. When World War One broke out. Tell me a little bit about her then and her story.
Iris 08:48
Oh, my Italian grandmother. Her family was originally from Italy. And they immigrated into from Italy to England, because at the time, there was a lot of uprising, you know, in Italy, you know, and as I was saying to you earlier, it's remarkable to me that these people moved around so much because they didn't have the transportation react to it. Right, you know, right. It was always by boat. And so she was born in England, but because World War One broke out, they now had to immigrate to the United States. It was a few years she was maybe a toddler by the time they get over here.
Jan Johnson 09:32
And that must have been a story just to figure out the logistics of them being able to emigrate.
Iris 09:40
Oh, it was it was a lot. I mean, they had to come by boat. And the boats back then were no pleasure cruises. Right. were dirty. They were, you know, germ infested people were dying on those boats. It wasn't good. They when they came over to Ellis Island. They had to be screened very carefully for disease. They had to be able to have to sponsor they had to be able to work. And if they had disease they were sent back on that boat again. I mean, can you imagine?
Jan Johnson 10:07
Right. So they must have known somebody in the states then to be able to immigrate there.
Iris 10:28
Yeah, they always have to have a sponsors. So I believe that my grandmother's mother had one, one or two brothers that were over here. I see. And so, so she was able to get sponsored by them. And so they they set, you know, they put their foot down here and settled in and, you know, able to work and raise their kids. But then there was a polio epidemic. So there was two polio epidemics always won in the 1920s. And then one in the 1950s. My grandmother contracted, the one in the 1920s, left her crippled for life from that. And so that affected her, she now had disabilities back then, which people didn't often recognize, right. And you were kind of shunned upon, you know, and so, she also had, because they were Italian, she had a lot of brothers. And it's a long story, because the brothers, most of them were nice, but some of them got involved with the Italian Mob.
Jan Johnson 11:30
Oh,
Iris 11:31
yeah. So my grandmother ended up meeting, you know, one of their friends, who we didn't know, we didn't know any of this back then I found out recently through ancestry.com really what the story was because I met the family. And basically, she hooked up with this man, who she didn't know, was married, and he was married with children. And she became pregnant at the age of 16. And she was she was crippled. So you know, it was kind of a, you know, one night thing. Yeah, she became pregnant with my dad. And so my dad spent his whole life not knowing who his real father was, she would never tell my dad because the man was married. And so that was something that he had to, you know, just never know, she would just never tell him, right. It wasn't until, you know, all these things took place with all the Italians, we had a one of my uncle's, was murdered in downtown Boston back in the 1950s, due to a deal that had gone bad. So there was all of these, you know, things that were taking place in her life that was causing her to, to not want to share with my father, who this man was because she felt he was a threat to my dad, and she didn't want him to know who he was. But through ancestry.com, I did find out after my dad passed, you know, who his real father was, and the family and the real name.
Jan Johnson 12:58
And interesting that at 16 That she wasn't sent away somewhere to have him and then she was able to keep him, you know, because that wasn't a normal thing at the time, either.
Iris 13:11
Actually, in my book, I talk about that. And it's funny that you bring that up, because she actually was sent away to what was known as a reform school back then, run by mothers. And so yeah, she was there for, I think it was eight months until she delivered and it wasn't pleasant. It was something where these girls were shunned. Right, they were considered, you know, you know, bad and, you know, kind of, right, a term you want to use, but you know, not not a not a good influence, you know,
Jan Johnson 13:42
but then the trouble but then she's, but she's still raised him.
Iris 13:47
That's Oh, yeah. I'm glad you're asking these questions, because it is a kind of a little while,
Jan Johnson 13:51
because I'm trying to figure out how this I'm trying to picture this, how this actually happened. Yeah.
Iris 13:56
So after she got out of the reform school after she delivered him, her mother, the one from England, or Italy, didn't want to give the baby up. So she had an older daughter who was already married and settled and had other children who she felt could raise him. So the baby was given to my aunt Ann. And she raised him until he was about eight or nine. And his name back then was Thomas Miller. Oh, okay. And his his original name was Tomaso. Oh, which is Italian for Thomas. Uh huh. And after eight years, my grandmother with the polio was introduced to a man from Russia, incidentally. And he, he took a liking to her and he wanted to marry her and my grandma, her grandmother, my great grandmother, okayed that. Yeah, so at that point, I mean, you can imagine how confusing it must have been for my dad to be raised by his auntie right with his cousins and only child and now he's In a family with, you know his mother and the stepfather, yeah, yeah. And along comes four other siblings. Yeah. You know, who are now half Russian and half Italian. And his he had a whole name change. Yeah. And when she took him back, she changed his name to Leonard Fisher. Fisher was the name of the man she married. Oh, and Leonard was the name of the man that she had the affair with.
Jan Johnson 15:27
Oh, wow. Hmm. Tell me some about your Jewish Russian grandmother.
Iris 15:38
Oh, she was she was a peach. She really had a lot of integrity. She was very sweet. She was my first godly example. And she was an orthodox too. And she had more faith in God than anybody I knew. She just loved the Lord and followed after him. So here she is in Zaslav, Russia, which was near Minsk, this is back in the early 1920s. And she had 11 sisters and brothers, I believe it was, and, you know, a happy family life and she had a fiance. And his name was Morris, which in Russian, they called him Meshe. And they were they were going to be when they were there, you know, they are, you know, planning on getting married. So there was one evening where there was sitting together, you know, the two of them, with her family in the living room of their home within a village of Sasselov. And all of a sudden, the Russian Bolsheviks came in and raided the village, it was called pograms. And they kicked everybody out of their homes, they rented everything, they took all their belongings, you know, they had beautiful tapestries that they had, you know, done themselves. Yeah, you know, beautiful, beautiful dishware and things like that. They took everything. And her sister Betsy resisted, and she was beaten and thrown in prison. The other sisters and brothers that were present were either killed or they died of disease, her mother had asthma. And she died of a bad asthma attack, because there was nobody to attend to her in the middle of all these raids. Wow. So my grandmother was able to, with her father's help, was able to escape and get out of there. And her fiance Morris also was able to escape, but that was separated. I say at that point, they never saw each other again. And so my grandmother was by herself. She didn't know what happened to her sister, Betsy that was thrown in prison. She didn't really know what happened to Morris, she witnessed her mother die. She was separated from her father during her exile. And then she had to get a guide or father arranged for her to get a guide to lead her to a boat that would bring her to Ellis Island where she could be free. Yeah. And she had one. She didn't have one other brother. His name was Sam, who went ahead of her. Oh, and, and so she had a sponsor. Okay. And when she got there, yeah, so once you arrived at Ellis Island, was along the way. She was on this boat, and I believe she was on the boat for a few weeks is I remember
Jan Johnson 18:19
probably, that would make sense. Yeah.
Iris 18:21
And you know, it was than anything like a cruise ship would be. They were at the bottom of the they were they were placed at the bottom of the boat, you know, and then in the galley there. I think that's what they called it and people were throwing up, they were very sick. They were there was a lot of disease. People were dying, and she would go out on the deck just to get some air away from the stench. Yeah. And so by the, by the time she got to Ellis Island, and here she is an 18 year old by herself. Yeah, she was she was held there for six weeks to be screened of disease. She had to be able to work. Yeah, there was all these stipulations. She had to even have a little bit of money, which her father arranged for her to have on the way here. And she asked after the six weeks, she was able to be released and she started work as a seamstress. Oh, well, because a common a common trait that she learned in Russia. Uh huh. No, uh huh. Ah,
Jan Johnson 19:22
and then did she get married? While she must have gotten married because she's a grandma. See how see how smart I am? Yeah.
Iris 19:36
Well, there was a lot of immigrants back then. All right. So during the course of working as a tailor in downtown Boston, in a factory, she met a man. His name was Joseph Millman. And he was about he was a good 10 years older than her. And they fell in love and they got married, but she never forgot Morris. She never forgot him.
Jan Johnson 19:59
Well, because You don't forget your first love.
Iris 20:03
I never did. Don't tell my husband.
Jan Johnson 20:08
that's okay cuz he didn't forget his first love either.
Iris 20:17
Sorry about that, too. Anyway, so she married Joseph Melman. And then they had two children. And one, the oldest one, Ruth is my mother's older sister had Developmental Disabilities due to epilepsy. And they back then they treated that disease terribly. They didn't know what to do with it, right medications. And so what they do is they gave her the botany and shock treatment. And you can only imagine Yeah, do to her. Oh, yeah. Yeah. She just, I mean, it just ruined her. And she was a beautiful girl. Yeah, there's a picture of her in my book. And they just they didn't know how to treat it. You know? Right. Yeah. indications that they have today. Mm hmm. So my, my mother was responsible for taking care of her a lot. Well, my grandmother worked. And my grandfather worked. And my mother was very close with her dad. And she leaned on him a lot. And there was one afternoon she was coming home from school with a friend. And she was walking up the street in Chelsea, Massachusetts is where they lived. And that was like on the north side of Boston, okay. And they're walking up the street, they hear fire engines. And her father takes her by the hand and a friend and says, let's go see what this fire is all about. And so they walk up the street, they approach their own home and to see that it's an absolute flame. So mine, oh, to be burned to the ground. And so at that time, Joseph was 50 years old. And he just because of all the excitement he dropped dead, right, holding my mother's hand.
Jan Johnson 21:54
Oh, my not to have your house burned, but they have your father die at the same time. Yeah.
Iris 22:00
And she was only she was only 10. Can you imagine? And she said to me, she said, You know, I looked down at him. And his eyes were open. And I kept saying, Daddy, wake up. Daddy wake up. Yeah. And in the end, he didn't. And you can only imagine the impact it left on my mother. Oh, yeah,
Jan Johnson 22:15
absolutely. Oh, unbelievable. Horrible.
Iris 22:17
And it explains to me why my mother had abandonment issues. Right. You know, I never understood that. So she told me that story. And she never told me that story until I was in my 40s.
Jan Johnson 22:29
Well, because it was always painful. I'm sure it was just such a painful memory that she didn't want to relive it, you know.
Iris 22:37
And people back then didn't often talk about their deepest hurts, right? Everything was hush hush. You know, you want everybody to know your story. Right? Right. Because of embarrassment or whatever. But anyway, so that happened. And so my mother was responsible, as she got older for working part time helping my grandmother, soon as a hard worker, my mom, and she, you know, helped her with her sister who was developmentally disabled. And then because later on my mother got married to my father and her own children, and she's now in her 20s. And my grandmother is still a widow. And she's going to work one day in Boston. It was I believe it was in the in the morning. She was headed to work. It was probably about maybe nine o'clock in the morning. Yeah. She's walking down the street. It was very sunny out where you could it was kind of hard to see. Yeah, yeah. And so she's looking, she's looking up the street, and she sees a man coming up the street. And he's coming closer and closer. And she's looking and she's saying He looks familiar. Yeah. And he's looking at her and she's looking at him and they got closer and they were like, it's you. It was Morris, her old love from Russia.
Jan Johnson 23:51
How could that happen? Isn't that amazing? Wow. What a story so
Iris 23:56
and he coincidentally had had his wife had passed like 10 years prior to that too. What happened was they they got together, they began to talk and they began to date and they fell right back in love again, and they lived happily, literally happily ever after, you know, they died together. You know, in a nursing home.
Jan Johnson 24:17
Oh, really? Oh, wow. Isn't that something? Somebody your dad, was it your dad? That was a POW.
Iris 24:31
Yeah, my dad when he was 19 entered into you know, he actually went in voluntarily initially into the Korean War. You know, it was right before the war broke out. He enlisted into the air force. And that was because he was trying to decide what to do with his future. And he had a best friend and his best friend's was was Leonard Nimoy because . And they both went into the service together and when Leonard went into the branch where he would did a lot of, you know, entertaining of the troops. He got the the good end of it. My dad was put on spy missions, you know, where he would have to spy on the Russians in Germany. And so he was sent on a mission. This was in 1950. Yeah. When the world, I think when the Korean War broke out. Anyway, he was on a mission in a helicopter and they shot his helicopter down, he was taken prisoner. He was missing in action for about six months. And it was interesting, because then it was Senator Kennedy, who later became President Kennedy, who was instrumental in his, you know, being found, oh, my, huh. He came to me, you know, we in my book, I show a picture of him sending you know, the letter he has sent to my grandmother telling her that we're still looking for him, but to no avail. He came to the home because he lived in Boston. Okay. Yeah. Senator Kennedy was he lived in Boston. And so he visited homes of, you know, missing service. Mm hmm. And he looked for him very diligently along with other missing servicemen. And if it wasn't for then Senator Kennedy, who became President Kennedy, my dad would not have been found. And when they found him, he had been tortured and, you know, given medications and truth serums. And he was he was really an in rough shape. Yeah. But he was nursed back to health and was able to get married. And yeah, you know, he was he was he was a good father. He had his limitations. Because of everything that had happened to him. And later on in life, he developed bone cancer as a result of all the drugs he had been given.
Jan Johnson 26:46
Yeah, yeah. Understandably. Oh, my.Yeah. Really interesting. Wow. So now I understand that you have a screenplay adaptation in progress.
Iris 27:10
Yeah. Tell us about that. Well, there's so much in the book. It's a 400 page book with 130 photos. And there's so many stories that correlate between World History and my family's history. That as a, you know, a screenplay writer looked at it and said, you know, this really could be a series. It's such a long book with with so many different stories, right, and so much history. And so in my history included, that people are going from reminiscing to learning, you know what it was like back then and to incorporate it into today's world?
Jan Johnson 27:47
Yeah. Yeah. That sounds fascinating.
Iris 27:51
Yeah, so the screenplay is now being written. It's almost done. Okay. Our producer, you know, that's interested in it. We have a meeting with her tomorrow night. And she is from California. And she's been a producer, I think, for 25 years. Very good. She's been looking. She's been looking for screenplays that we could make into a television series. Uh huh. Uh huh. And she said, this would be perfect. Yeah. She's helping us tweak the screenplay to get it, you know, so that it's right after fatale vision. And so, you know, could you take it from a book, right? You don't want people to have to read the story on television, you want them to see it? Exactly. So. So it's quite different to take a story that you've written about when people are reading it, and you have to put action behind it.
Jan Johnson 28:40
I think that's that would be just a fascinating process to go through your unfortunate person to have that. That's really neat. I want to ask you one more thing, when you said that you work with Joni and Friends. Tell me about that experience.
Iris 28:57
Um, during the course of my trying to get better, you know, I went from being in a wheelchair at times to being a little bit better. And then I would walk a little bit better than I would lapse back into the wheelchair. And it had a lot to do with the brain injury, I have experience back during the coma. And you know, then I was experiencing little mini strokes. So it was kind of on again, off again. Well, during that course of time, I began to think about and pray, you know, what, what's my purpose here? So I got in touch with through a friend and in touch with Joni and Friends, and this was probably about 20 years ago, I started reading her books because I was looking for encouragement. How did she do it? Right. Well, she had a lot to say. And I learned a lot about when I was being helped by a caregiver to make it about the caregiver. So that I wasn't always you know, being self-focused, right. So in the course of that, I got wind of the fact that they were looking for ministry associates to be You know, an example of her ministry, you know, in your church and your community, and she started this thing with the tree treats. And so I got involved that way. And a friend of mine, and I started to write newsletters for her that were distributed in churches around the country. That led to Speaking of which, my latest devotional, oh, okay, which is a compilation of all those newsletters, we wrote the last nine years. Wow. I mean, a friend of mine, her name is Tammy Mace Berg, work together to formulate those newsletters. And they were just kind of sitting dormant on a website. And we said, You know what, let's just take them and compile them into a book. And here we have this devotional, with all those, you know, words of encouragement we shared for nine years.
Jan Johnson 30:50
Wow. Wow, that'll be fun to read to. That is awesome. Yeah. Okay, I'm gonna end we're getting close to the end here. I want to ask you one last question, what brings you the greatest joy?
Iris 31:04
You know, with everything that I've seen, and everything that I've been through in the stories that I've heard from previous generations, it's really inspiring people who are hurting. You know, you see today with the pandemic, and the war that's broken out in Ukraine, people are really frightened. And they're, they're, you know, going without, it's almost like the 1930s over again. And, you know, with the depression, yeah. And so it's my hope that, because in my book I talk about this is a book is based on Ecclesiastes, where it says, Two are better than one. For when one falls, the other one picks the other one up, and pity the man who's alone. So all my life, because I was disabled myself, I knew what it felt like to feel less than, or alone at times, even though I had a lot of support. There were times when I felt very alone. And I was like, I'm gonna do it. And so I want to be able to encourage people that they don't have to be alone. And in order to be a friend, in order to have a friend, you have to first be a friend. Right? Right. And we don't get from taking we get from giving. So there's this business of reaching out. And, you know, encouraging somebody to make a making their day better and their life even better, just from listening to them and encouraging them and, and hearing their story and say, How can I help? There's a quote from Mother Teresa, that I have in my book that I love to share every now and then I just I love to share this with people. She said, and she again, she was my role model. I just loved her humbleness and her love for people and it was sincere and loved God. Yeah, she was a real thing. Yeah, I said, the most terrible poverty is loneliness. And the feeling of being unloved. Yeah, it is the greatest poverty. You know, it's non monetary.
Jan Johnson 33:05
Right.
Iris 33:06
It's the human the human soul. Yeah, so what is my greatest passion is to see people encouraged and uplifted who feel that way.
Jan Johnson 33:16
Yeah, but again, thank you so much. This has just really been interesting. I can't wait to put it all together and be ready to have everybody listen, we'll put all of your links down in the show notes so people will know where to find you and be watching out for that movie coming. Thanks again, Iris.
Iris 33:38
Well, actually, it's a series
Jan Johnson 33:42
that will be fun. Okay.