S P A C E L I G H T
INDEX
Name: SMITH, Edward Elmer
Aged: 75
Born: May 2, 1890
Where: Sheboygan, Wisconsin
Died: August 31, 1965
Where: Seaside, Oregon (on vacation)
Interred: Unknown (lived Clearwater, FL)
Married: Jeannie Craig MacDougall
When: 1915
Awarded: 1963 First Fandom Hall of Fame
E. E. "Doc" Smith
"When an editor makes my hard, tough, adult male lead use
'For goodness sake!' I have to be scraped down off the ceiling."
Is this the man who made powdered sugar stick to doughnuts? Legend says it is. Doc Smith, a PHD from George Washington University, was employed as a chemical engineer in the food industry, working for Dawn Doughnut Company in 1936. Soon after, WW II began, and Doc went to work for the US Army.
Like Clark Ashton Smith, Doc worked at a lot of jobs. He was both a streetcar and bus conductor, ranch hand, surveyor, railroad worker, silver miner, employee of the US Bureau of Standards, and chief chemist for F. W. Stock & Sons.
Half of his books are authored by 'E. E. Smith, PH D' and half are authored by 'E. E. "Doc" Smith'.
Doc's interest in space travel encouraged a neighbor to suggest that he write science fiction novels. With some small help from that neighbor writing the romantic scenes, Doc completed the manuscript for Skylark of Space in 1919. Long years later, the novel was serialized in Amazing Stories. A certain segment of the reading public was amazed and Doc, although he had lost money, was encouraged to write more.
So the Gray Lensman joined the other Space Opera heros and Doc spent the rest of his life writing about him. In the end, the fiction became more real to Doc than life itself. He was also a believer in never finishing one's life work, because if you did, you'd die. Didn't work . . . he left behind several incompleted manuscripts, which was his plan after all. The finish carpenters were Gordon Eklund, Lloyd Eshbach, Stephen Goldin, and David Kyle.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mine here.
BIOGRAPHY: Science Fiction Writers, Scribners 1982
OBITUARY: New York Times, September 2, 1965, p31
