Gordon H. Smith - Early Life and Family

Early Life and Family

Smith was born in Pendleton, Oregon, to Jessica Udall Smith and Milan Dale Smith on May 25, 1952. Smith's family moved to Bethesda, Maryland during his childhood, when his father became an Assistant United States Secretary of Agriculture. He was involved with the Boy Scouts of America and earned the rank of Eagle Scout. After graduating from high school, Smith served for two years as a Mormon missionary to New Zealand. On March 31, 2012, Smith was called as an Area Authority Seventy for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Smith then went to college at Brigham Young University, received his Juris Doctor from Southwestern University School of Law, and became an attorney in New Mexico and Arizona. He moved back to Oregon in the 1980s to become director of the family owned Smith Frozen Foods company in Weston, Oregon.

Smith and his wife Sharon adopted several children in the 1980s, including sons Morgan and Garrett and daughter Brittany. On September 8, 2003, Garrett, then a 21 year old college student majoring in culinary arts, committed suicide. Smith wrote a book entitled Remembering Garrett, One Family’s Battle with a Child’s Depression. In 2004, President George W. Bush signed the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act, authorizing $82 million for suicide-prevention and awareness programs at colleges.

Smith is also a member of the Udall political family. His mother was a cousin of the late Representatives Mo Udall (D-AZ) and Stewart Udall (D-AZ), and Smith is a second cousin of Senators Mark Udall (D-CO) and Tom Udall (D-NM). He is a double second cousin of both of them, as their great- grandparents were a pair of brothers and a pair of sisters who married. All three of them were candidates for Senate in the 2008 elections. Smith was the only Republican and incumbent senator of the group, and the only one of the three to lose his electoral bid. Smith's brother, Milan Dale Smith, Jr., is a federal judge appointed by President George W. Bush in 2006. Smith is a member of the board of directors of the International Republican Institute. In 2010, another second cousin, fellow Republican Mike Lee of Utah, was elected to the Senate.