All
About
Amy.

Amy was born in Baltimore, Maryland.  At 17 years of age, she joined the U.S. Army as a Preventative Medicine Specialist and began working for the  U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine (USACHPPM). After four years of active duty service, she made her first overseas trip to the European Union where she traveled to Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Greece, England, Scotland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, Germany, Hungary, Portugal, France, Poland and Spain.  On June 24, while in Italy she had the opportunity to dine with the President of the Italian Red Cross in Solferino, Italy - at the famous battle site - where on the evening of June 24, 1859, Jean Henri Dunant witnessed a battle were twenty-three thousand wounded, dying and dead remained on the battlefield with little to no care.  He assisted in organizing the civilian population to help the wounded and later wrote a book about his experiences (Un Souvenir de Solferino). He had a major role in founding the International Red Cross Movement.  She also had the opportunity to wander the halls of the Vatican, run with the bulls in Pamplona, motorcycle across Greece and more.

After four years of working for the Active Duty U.S. Army and her return from Europe, she decided to settle down in the mountains of Flagstaff, Arizona.  Here she started her BSc degree at  Northern Arizona University (NAU) in Accounting and Public Relations at the  School of Communication and Media, with a minor in Business.  Amy spent close to the three years living in Flagstaff where she worked at Lowell Observatory as a Public Program Assistant,  Camp Navajo as a member of the U.S. Army National Guard, as a Research Assistant at NAU, and for the Coconino County/Flagstaff Silent Witness.

Over three years, during her time in Arizona, Amy traveled in the summers to India.  For several months she also lived in Srinagar, Kashmir on Lake Dal during the Pakistan/India Nuclear Crisis.  Here she was greatly influenced by the people she met and the stories she heard. 

EPIC Seminar

While living abroad, Amy was accepted into a six month paid internship with the Hanze as a international conference coordinator, where she was responsible for organizing a conference in Berlin.  The conference focused on how East and West German media and culture has changed since the fall of the Berlin Wall (November 9th).  "The wall did more then separate a city into two. It cut into the city’s living flesh. It separated friends and lovers.  In most places, only a line of stone in the city street marks the spot of the original wall."

ISM
Masters Degree
Vilnius Lithuania
Upon graduation Amy decided to further her studies in Europe and traveled to Lithuania to begin her MSc degree in International Business Management at a private Norwegian-based university.  There she also completed a summer internship with the U.S. Department of State at the U.S. Embassy in Vilnius in their Public Affairs Section. In her spare time she wrote for a local magazine by the name of Lithuania Today and worked for a local translation bureau. In two years, Amy graduated from her Master Program and was selected as one of two class speakers. Amy was the first American to graduate from this Masters Program in the history of the University and the second foreigner who ever attended the program.

De Hanze
Undergraduate
Groningen Netherlands

In Amy's third year of her undergraduate, she traveled to Groningen, Netherlands, for a year to study European Perspectives on International Communication with the  School of Communication and Media at the  Hanze University Groningen.  She spent six months studying in a specialized international communication program.  Besides university studies, Amy was involved in many other activities, which included writing for the student newspaper called De Hanze and was a member of the Communication Team organizing the EPIC Conference with the theme: Communication, the Road to Democracy.

Here Amy was also the team leader for a the research branch of a group called the PARA OPEN Team (running a Public Service Announcement Campaign). There goal was to research, develop and implement a PSA targeting various Dutch publics in an effort to fight against discrimination and encourage integration in Groningen. The team designed a ‘Boomerang’ postcard and 200,000 cards were distributed across the Netherlands. Various articles and flyers also appeared in Dutch newspapers.

With our group, we conducted Focus Group Discussions (FGD) to analyze the prevalent attitude of these various publics and also was responsible for raising the funding for the Boomerang postcards. This all took place during the time of, film director, Theo Van Gogh's murder in connection to the film, Submission, translated into English meaning Islam, (telling the story of four abused Muslim woman) written by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Ayaan Hirsi Ali was scheduled to be one of the speakers at that years EPIC Seminar. Van Gogh was assassinated in Amsterdam, (from a newspaper article, "he was shot 8 times, then his throat was slit, he was then stabbed in the chest repeatedly, two knives were left sticking out of his body and one with a 5 pages letter attached") while he was bike riding home. Following his murder, death threats and riots broke out all over the Netherlands.  There were attacks (arson, vandalism, etc.) on mosques, churches, and Islamic schools for months after the incident and everyday people lived in fear about what would be next. "November 9th was the date (planned long in advance) that the largest FGD took place and following the FGD, the participants walked out into the street and there in front of us was a protest for peace. Such an amazing feeling overtook me thinking about what we were working to achieve here and it was as if when we walked out there was a great sign that hope was alive.

Ledo Road

Amy is also actively involved in writing a book on her grandfather's experiences in the China, Burma, India (CBI) Theater in WWII composed of hundreds of his letters home to his wife and family during the war. She has a number of personal videos he also took of the construction of the Ledo Road and of native life in the region. Her grandfather is also a well known soil science, who is said to have written the 'Bible' of the soil classification system. She has been invited by the International Union of Soil Sciences to give a speech about the life of her grandfather during the presentation of the Guy Smith Award Metal in Lincoln, Nebraska from June 11 - 14, 2012.  The award is given in honor of her grandfather to a scientist who has made a significant scientific contribution that advances the field of soil science. In 2016 she traveled to Myanmar (Burma) to begin her writing. 

Family History

Rose was sent to a fine dressmaking school in Lausanne, a French-speaking area of Switzerland. She liked sewing and wanted to study fashion design; she also loved the French language. When Rose returned home to Zurich she called herself "Mademoiselle la Fountain" or the lady of the fountain after her last name Brunner (meaning fountain or spring). Rose met Emil for only a short time before he left for the United States, where they corresponded through the post.

Elizabeth Speer Davis, Aunt

She was in the Army Nurse Corps in WWll for 3 years.  She was behind front lines during the France Invasion onto Normandy Beach. She helped set up three Hospitals and worked in each one directly behind the front lines, taking care of both German and American Soldiers who were injured. 
She received a Gold Medal from the Mayer of Normandy to thank those who were there at the 50th Anniversary of the Invasion.
Emil went to a technical school for textiles and then began an apprenticeship in Zurich. This is when he took notice of Rose, before then he knew Rose through family connections but not formally. At the age of 24 (1909) he left home for a job in the United States, he and Rose communicated by post for many years and their love grew. In 1915 Rose came to the United States and they married.

Arthur E. Hess, Grandfather

Arthur E. Hess passed away on November 15th, 2005 of natural causes at his home in Charlottesville, VA, where he lived in retirement after a life of public service. Art entered Princeton in 1934 from Wyomissing High School at Reading, PA.   
Graduating with honors, he immediately began work in the just-begun Old-Age and Survivors Insurance program in the Social Security Administration.  Attending the University of Maryland School of Law at night, he received his J.D. and L.L.B. degrees and was admitted to the Maryland Bar.

During a 35-year career in the administration of the nation’s social security programs he received signal recognition for his part in designing and directing the start-up phases of both the disability program and Medicare, enacted in 1965.  At mid-century he became the first Director of Disability Insurance, and during the sixties he was instrumental in planning with hospital and medical leaders, and with state and private sector organizations, for administering Medicare, and was appointed its first Director.  Receiving the President’s Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service in 1967 he was appointed Deputy Commissioner of Social Security, then Acting Commissioner.

In 1967 Hess won the National Civil Service League Award.  In 1969 he won the Rockefeller Public Service Award, administered by Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School.  Hess was also recognized by Princeton Class of 1938 at the time of its 30th reunion.

Hess lived longest in Baltimore where he was active in public school, public hospital and church matters. After leaving government he was staff director or consultant to foundation-supported studies related to social security.  Hess served as the Director, Commission on Public General Hospitals between 1975 and 1978.  He then served on various advisory committees and as an independent consultant.  He was also Senior Member and Scholar-in-Residence, Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences [1980-1983] and a member of the Congressional Panel on Social Security Organization [1983-1984].  He was a founding member of the National Academy of Social Insurance.

He was married to the former Ann McKeown Davis until her death, and then Jane Linn Hess.   

Guy D. Smith, Grandfather

Guy D. Smith, was born in 1907, in Atlantic City Iowa, where his father was the local city engineer.  Both of his grandfathers had served in the Civil War.  One was a German immigrant who served in an engineering unit.  The other came from a wealthy family (Henry Gideon Curtis) and was an officer on Grant’s staff; he was captured and escaped from Andersonville Prison on his third attempt.  My great-grandfather was able to parlay his war record into a Senate seat from Iowa and retired to become the first governor of Puerto Rico when we captured it from Spain. 

Guy graduated from college in about 1929, just as the depression hit, and worked his way through graduate school (with academic honors) while supporting his parents who were bankrupt due to the failure of his fathers business.  He received his PhD in the study of soil science in the late 1930’s.  By the time Pearl Harbor was bombed he had three children and a wife (he was 34 years of age).  He enlisted the next month into the Army Air Corps (January 1942).  The Air Force was not yet a separate branch of the service. 

His first posting was to an air base in San Antonio, Texas and he was shipped overseas in 1944.  He traveled from Florida across Africa and then the Middle East, at last arriving in India.  He then traveled from Calcutta to Ledo, where he was based.

He was unwilling to talk about his duties due to the nature of his work.  From the letters he send home, we theorize that he was tasked with gathering information that could be released to the soldiers and to the general public.  He declined to even discuss the specifics of his duties, a few days before he passed away. 

Based on the letters and the movies he took, it is clear that he both flew the ‘hump’ to Kung Ming, China and traveled the whole of the Ledo road as it was constructed.  When the war ended, he was unable to be released back to the USA for quite some time.  He didn’t return until the spring of 1946. 

Guy declined the rank of major and assignment to the War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.  He exited the service with a priority government job in Washington, D.C. with the Department of Agriculture.  Not long after that, my grandmother passed away. 

Guy retired from the US Department of Agriculture in 1972 as the director of the US Soils Conservation Service.  He traveled extensively throughout the world documenting soil samples for the US government throughout much of his career. In 1981 he passed away in Ghent, Belgium, where he held a professorship at the University of Ghent.  His wife (second) still resides there today.
"I have been here before, seen how it is done and have a map. Don't make the same mistake twice."
"Real travel awakens the spirit and sets free the soul. It is the most unexplainable passion one can ever come to know. Those who travel really know." 
"Everything that was normal has never been."
"A message, a sense. It can tell a mountain in life."
"When all else fails, try optimism."
"There is no real truth, truth is only what it means to you. Truth is culture bound."
"You, are the hardest person on your own self."