Photo by Tyler R. Perry | Cass City’s Gail Smith poses for a photo with her blind cat, Bo.
Tyler R. Perry
For the Advertiser
CASS CITY — Nestled in her home in a quiet corner of the snow-laden village is Gail Smith. Entering her house with its bookshelves lined with a diverse array of titles, colorful art adorning the walls, and a friendly greeting at the door from her blind cat, Bo, it’s little wonder that she and her home are visited by friends from around the globe – people who feel that she is a woman who has changed not only their lives, but in a very real sense, the world.
It all started in the late 1990s. Smith was looking for both a new vehicle and a new home. Her first problem was solved when she purchased a car from her daughter in Ohio. Her second problem was solved driving it home to Iowa. “I was driving the car from Cleveland to Iowa, got onto I-75, and saw a sign for ‘Port Austin’”, she says. “I turned right and headed to the Thumb.”
“I chanced by sheer accident through Cass City,” she says.
According to Smith, what she saw that late summer night driving through the village was endearing.
“I was so struck by Main Street, the families walking home,” she says. “I thought, ‘I want to live here’.”
Not long after her initial pass through town, Smith sold her Iowa home and moved to Cass City. Her love for books and culture brought her to Rawson Memorial District Library where she soon became involved with the Friends of the Library, and hosting bus trips, which function as fundraisers for the organization.
Smith’s most fulfilling activity, however, was not discovered until five years after she moved here. In 2005, she visited her son and his partner who were hosting a foreign student while the student attended a summer language camp.
Over dinner she was informed that the student was in need of a home for the school year. It took some prompting, but Smith agreed to host the student if another family could not be found.
Shortly after returning to Cass City, Smith received a phone call informing her that the student had already been placed with a family, but that a young man from Taiwan was still in need of a place to stay for the year. His name was George Yang, and he became the first of Smith’s foreign “children.”
Since that time, the Gail Smith residence has become a mini-United Nations, with 11 foreign exchange students visiting from 9 countries, including Taiwan, Japan, Russia, Moldova, Germany, Armenia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and Korea.
In 2006, Smith became an Area Representative with the American Scandinavian Student Exchange Program (ASSE), an organization whose stated purpose is “to foster international understanding through educational and cross cultural programs”.
As a representative of ASSE, Smith has a host of responsibilities, including finding homes for foreign exchange students, making sure the living arrangements and family dynamics are suitable for them, and acting as a “neutral party” students are able to take their problems and concerns to.
For the kids she has placed, Gail Smith is more than a host – she is a beloved mentor and friend. “From the very first second we met, I knew that I could absolutely trust that woman with everything,” says Amulya Badmaeva, a Russian student Smith placed with a Cass City area family. “There’s something about her that makes you feel very comfortable around her. She helped me to grow and mature as a person.”
George Yang, Smith’s first exchange student, echoed Badmaeva’s sentiments, “She’s like my family there, and she surely offered a great, memorable year in my life.”
Perhaps Lars Weigmann, who hails from Germany, summed up Smith’s impact on the world best. “I am of the opinion that Gail really impacted the lives of many kids, including mine, with her work with exchange students,” he says. “And because of that fact you really can say that she impacted the whole world by bringing American culture and lifestyle into the lives of many foreign kids.”