Howard K. Smith - Family Life

Family Life

Smith's son, Jack, as an ABC correspondent received Peabody and Emmy awards for his coverage of technology; he died of pancreatic cancer in Marin County, California, days before what would have been his 59th birthday."

Smith also had a daughter, Catherine H. Smith of Los Angeles, by his March 1942 marriage to the former Benedicte "Bennie" Traberg (September 25, 1921—October 29, 2008), then a 20-year-old journalist originally from Denmark, whom Smith called the most impressive person he had ever known "far above presidents and generals". There were three grandchildren.

Catherine Smith, who wrote her mother's obituary, quoted from Smith's 1996 memoirs Events Leading Up to My Death, that their relationship "was born in an atmosphere of acute crisis." With World War II heating up, recalled Catherine Smith, and "both of them heading out of the German capital, they decided to marry just four days after their first date. My mother's young age required her return to Nazi-occupied Denmark for parental approval and the Danish queen's intervention to obtain traveling papers, but the couple reunited successfully three months later in Berne, Switzerland."

Mrs. Smith managed her husband's career, handled the finances and investments, and helped with the processing of his publications. Catherine Smith noted that her mother was the one most responsible for the development of Smith's patrician demeanor. "She was a formidable presence at his side and major force behind his success. She edited all his books and articles, and was his agent, negotiating all his broadcasting and other contracts. She arranged every aspect of what, in later years, became a very lucrative speaking career. When my parents traveled on the lecture circuit, she once laughingly told a Lansing, Michigan, paper ... : 'My husband never knows where his trips will take him .... It's not until we get ready to board the plane that he'll inquire 'Where are we going?' and then I will tell him.'"

The Smiths lived at their Potomac River home in Bethesda, Maryland, from 1958 until his death from pneumonia, after which Mrs. Smith relocated to a condominium on Marco Island, Florida. She died at age 87 of complications from hydrocephalus. The Smiths are interred at historic Oak Hill Cemetery in the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C.