Gertrude Martin Smith was born in 1913 in Colorado Springs. Shortly after she was born, she and her family moved to Salt Lake where she graduated from Judge in 1929. Gertrude had many things going on in her life as a teenager; after all she graduated in the Roaring Twenties. The Depression was one very big thing that happened in the Thirties, however, this did not affect Gertrude and her family greatly.

“The only thing I can really remember,” she said, “is when the bank that had $75 of mine closed. I was extremely upset.”

Things did not cost the same then, it was only 10¢ to ride the train or to see a movie and ice cream cones were only 5¢; she earned $75 a month on her first real job. It was different for teens back then too. The girls wore nice dresses and hats downtown, and they rode streetcars to and from school. On the weekends they might have taken the train to Saltair, where there was a big dance hall where most of the teens hung out. When she attended the Cathedral

School, things were a lot different than today. For instance, her homeroom actually happened to be in an old operating room. They didn’t have to wear uniforms, and they didn’t even have a gym yet. She had about 25 people in her graduating class. “Fr.Keefe, was a great man, and we were all so close.”