Smith carefully slid a 5x7 inch glass plate into the camera, then snapped the picture that he would use to teach children about this earliest of spring flowers. Perhaps Smith even trekked to the woods with the youngsters so they could smell the unusual odor of the skunk cabbage. Sweeney's Woods is gone now.
Houses are there instead.
Skunk cabbage doesn't grow there anymore, not since Smith passed away in 1943 after serving 32 years as Superintendent of School District 107 at Elm Place School. But the photos Smith took and his legacy live on. The exhibit finished a run at the Heller Nature Center this spring and is headed to the Chicago Botanic Gardens July 28-September 10. Other groups, including Lake County Forest Preserve District at Ryerson Conservation Area, are set to host the show through next year. The Lake Forest College professor painstakingly transformed Smith's glass slides into black and white prints, then mounted them for the exhibit.