Nolan E. Smith ’54

Nolan E. Smith of Bishop St. New Haven died October 29, 2009 in the Hospital of St. Raphael. Nolan was born in Lima, OH April 30, 1932, son of the late Raymond P. and Mary Purnell Smith. He was the proprietor of American Worlds Books, selling rare books to universities worldwide and helped scholars with research projects. Nolan received his Bachelor of Arts with honors in English from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1954, his Master of Arts from University of Toronto in 1955, and attended Yale University, studying American Literature in 1958. He also was an instructor of English at the University of Virginia. He was a member of several academic honor societies including Phi Beta Kappa. He was a trombone player and a member of the ClamDiggers Dixie Band and a member of the New Haven Preservation Trust. He is the brother of D’Nell Larkin of  Woodland, CA and the late Doyle Raymond Smith.

Letter from Nolan prior to his passing ….

Hi,Tom:
Thank you for another informative letter. It’s good to hear about Jim Meredith, and to see the pictures of all of you, in Maine. The colon problem is certainly a major one, too, and my own brother had that years ago. Jim looks about as good as he would have if he’d just finished a strenuous weight loss program. I’ve also lost some weight since I last saw you, thanks to a case of pernicious anemia which came my way in late 2007. I’ve been taking lots of iron pills, getting B-12 shots, and the like; however, along with various kinds of tests. I suppose I just have to think that I didn’t need that extra 25 lb. or so, after all.

Good to hear of the playing opportunities, and all that they involved. I played several circus gigs in New Haven, too, in the eighties, I think, but it was all pretty stressful, and live bands just don’t do those jobs any more. (Nothing like getting it all on tape, I suppose,
if perhaps the band getting it on tape is getting paid rather well.) I much prefer the small “society” bands for dances; however, as you probably noticed, in ’04, and have one of them coming up this Saturday, at the Club a block and a half south of me, along with one at the Yale Law School a week from tonight. The latter has a visiting speaker from New Orleans, that day, and wants to have a band play a lot of N. O. tunes for him. One of the ones he wants is “High Society,”  but we’ll have to substitute something for that, since this group doesn’t know it all that well, and also won’t have a large enough band to do justice to it. Other people might not even known “Struttin’ with some Barbecue,” but I’ll try to get us to learn that, if possible.

Re the books: I’m at www.amworlds.net, and I need to get busy to list some more books there, after not having done that for a while. I sell on Amazon and another site or two; however, and have really had to review all my Internet listings, this past two years, since AZ doesn’t make it easy for us to get our books listed on its site, even though it gets a good bit of its profit from fees for our listings.

Happy trolling on my site, then; I’m also trying to finish some writing projects long delayed, and this effort seems to take most of the time left over from other efforts to bring in some cash. I don’t think I’ll get back to the reunion this year, as I may have said, but Mike Schwartz and others at this end of the country might do so. Mike and his wife are down in Florida, actually, somewhere, you know. I’ve never been to FL myself, I must confess, but it doesn’t seem to do anyone any harm, especially at this time of year, does it?
Nolan

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