REVEREND FRANKLIN C. SMIELAU

(1875 - 1940)

Rev. Franklin C. Smielau, 65, who was credited by the deaf people of Pennsylvania with removing the restriction against their operating motor vehicles, died December 22, 1940, at his home in Ashland, Pa., where he had been under the care of his wife and friends following a leg amputation the summer before at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia. His retirement in 1933 as general missionary to the deaf in Ohio was caused in part by a serious diabetic condition.

"Smike," as he was known by his colleagues, was a colorful figure in the ranks of the deaf missionaries, and the deaf everywhere considered him an outstanding "sign language orator." The Rev. Mr. Smielau was born August 27,1875, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Having lost his hearing at the age of seven, he attended a day school for three years, and then entered the school for the deaf at Columbus, graduating in 1892, valedictorian of his class. Afterwards he went to Gallaudet College and graduated in 1897 - again as valedictorian of his class. He was an outstanding baseball player, and during his senior year he was captain of the team. Also, while at Gallaudet he was in demand as a model at the Corcoran School of Art and posed for the Emancipation Statue, now in Lincoln Park, Washington, D.C.

In the fall of 1897 he entered the Philadelphia Divinity School as a candidate for holy orders. He was probably the first deaf student there to take the course in Hebrew. He was ordained a deacon in 1901, and a priest in 1902.

He was appointed missionary in the central Pennsylvania dioceses, and when the Rev. C. Orvis Dantzer, Missionary in western New York, as appointed vicar of All Souls Church for the Deaf, Philadelphia. Mr. Smielau extended his missionary activities to western New York (1904-1916). When the Rev. B. R. Allabough resigned from the work in the Diocese of Pittsburgh to become missionary in the north central States of Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan in 1916, Mr. Smielau relinquished the work in New York to become general missionary of all of Pennsylvania except the Diocese of Pennsylvania (the eastern part of the State). Upon the death, Rev. Clarence W. Charles, who had succeeded the Rev. B. R. Allabough, Mr. Smielau resigned from the work in Pennsylvania to take over the north central States field, and when the Rev. Horace B. Waters was ordained and appointed to missionary work in Michigan, Mr. Smielau then confined himself to the two Ohio dioceses.

Smielau held a number of offices in organizations of the deaf. He was also an active member of the Pennsylvania Society for the Advancement of the Deaf which he served on the Board of Managers for 17 years, he was president of Gallaudet College Alumni Association, and on August 8, 1930, he was elected president of the National Association of the Deaf at the convention in Buffalo. However, he did not serve out the full term owing to failing health. At the time of his retirement he estimated that he had traveled more than a million miles doing missionary work since being ordained in 1901.

Reginald L. Boyd