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Robert L.
About the Authors
Robert was born in San Diego, California in 1924, graduated from Long Beach Polytechnic High School in 1942, and inducted into the United States Army in 1943. He trained as a surg...view moreAbout the Authors
Robert was born in San Diego, California in 1924, graduated from Long Beach Polytechnic High School in 1942, and inducted into the United States Army in 1943. He trained as a surgical technician and shipped to Normandy, France in July 1944, where he served as a company aid man with the 28th Infantry Division from July 16 until wounded in Wallendorf, Germany in September. Returning to combat, just before the Battle of the Ardennes in December, he was promoted from private to staff sergeant. His military decorations include the Purple Heart, The Bronze Star, and five Battle Stars for the European Theater of Operations, Combat Medical Badge, and the Good Conduct Medal, and, Distinguished Member of the United States Army Medical Regiment, appointment by Eric B. Schoomaker, The Surgeon General.
Attending college under the GI Bill of Rights he matriculated at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Berkeley where he received his BA in 1949 and MA in Sociology and Social Institutions in 1955.
Fran Williams was born in Long Beach, California in 1928, graduated from Polytechnic High School in 1945, and the University of California at Santa Barbara in June of 1949. She was employed as a social worker by the Orange County Welfare Department, and later the State Department of Social Welfare for services to Old Age Security and Aid to the Needy Blind. She married Robert L. Smith in Long Beach, California in July, 1950, and a year later moved to the San Francisco Bay Area where she was employed by Contra Costa County Welfare Services to serve all categories of aid. During her time with Contra Costa she became committed to improving the available treatment to adults and juveniles with serious learning disabilities. She was selected as a part of a three person team, Psychiatrist, Psychologist, and Social Worker, to conduct a county-wide study to determine the need for community day treatment centers to serve this population. Following completion of the study two day-centers were established to care for adults and juveniles under new legislation funding the development, building, and programming for the facilities.
During their 60 plus years of marriage and extensive foreign travel for education and professional development, she and her husband worked as a team engaging in collaborative writing and consultation in many countries and professional fields. This has also characterized their work on four of seven books written by Robert L. and Fran Williams Smith. Their lives and marriage have been marked by this cooperative approach to work and life.
Robert’s fifty plus year professional career was dedicated to the administration and reform of juvenile and criminal justice at the local, state, and federal levels of government. He held positions as Chief of Planning, Assistant Chief of Research, and Deputy Director with the California Youth Authority, and Assistant Director with the National Institute of Corrections before his second retirement in 1983.
Special awards include a Fulbright Scholarship to Britain in 1961, a Winston Churchill Fellowship Grant to England in 1969, selection as a Visiting Expert to the United Nations Asian Far Eastern Institute in Fuchu, Japan, in 1971, and he and his wife as leader for six professional visits of Criminal Justice Experts to China from 1979-1990, and one to the Soviet Union in 1989.
They retired for a third time in 2000 to devote her time photography, and his to his new found interest, " being a story teller," which resulted "Medic!", The Carnival of Animals, Time Out, Never Waste the Flowers, Desires of the Heart, Quest, and Endeavor, their seventh book.
Robert and Fran made their home in Berkeley, California in 1951, where they continued to live in spite of absences while living abroad and in Washington, D.C. for extended periods of time. It was the first and only home they have ever owned, and the place of their enduring residence.view less