John Marvin Smith, Jr.: A Legacy in Medicine and Community Service (1914–2003)

John Marvin Smith, Jr., army officer, physician and surgeon, and hospital developer, was born on June 14, 1914, in Caldwell, Burleson County, Texas, to John Marvin Smith and Willie Virginia (Burleson) Smith. Smith graduated from Main Avenue High School in San Antonio. He earned a bachelor of science in chemistry and biology and a masters in chemistry from North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas) in Denton in 1935 and 1936 before attending Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans, where he received his doctor of medicine in 1940. He had two years of post-graduate medical training at the Robert B. Green Hospital in San Antonio. While serving as an intern at Robert B. Green, Smith was charged with the responsibility of home deliveries. He then became in-house officer at the Medical and Surgical Memorial Hospital (often abbreviated as M & S Hospital).

During World War II, Smith applied for military service and was rejected because of hypertension and flat feet. After he appealed to a colleague, these disabilities were overlooked, and Smith was commissioned in the U.S. Army Medical Corps. He reported to March Field in Bakersfield, California, and was soon transferred to a newly-formed unit at Shepherd Field, where they operated a station hospital at Yuma, Arizona, until the unit was fully staffed. Smith was sent to Camp Claiborne, Louisiana, and Campground, Illinois, before going overseas. His unit took over a 1000-bed general hospital, which deployed a tent hospital above Normandy Beach to treat those wounded in the liberation of France. Two other hospitals were set up—a 3,000-bed facility and a designated prisoner-of-war hospital were consolidated. Soon the hospital was at 90 percent capacity, as prisoners were sent in instead of being transferred out of Europe. The hospital was moved to Metz, Belgium, where a thirty-seven-building complex was taken over, which was the principal facility in treating the casualties from the battle of the Bulge. Smith’s unit was transferred back to Rouen, France, where they awaited orders to the Pacific, which never came.

Following the war, Smith, having achieved the rank of major, returned stateside and married Jane Jordan, his sweetheart from college, on March 24, 1946. Jordan was the daughter of Benjamin and Florence Jordan of Victoria. The couple lived in El Paso, where Smith was stationed at William Beaumont Hospital, Fort Bliss, for six months, where he had an orthopedic service. After he was discharged from the army, the Smiths returned to San Antonio, where John Marvin Smith established a private practice in 1946. They had four children: J. M. III, Joella, Paxton, and Robert Burleson.

Soon after establishing his practice, Smith was appointed head of a committee of the Bexar County Medical Society to study San Antonio’s growing health needs. There had been three failed attempts for the state legislature to establish a medical school in San Antonio at the old arsenal property. He was active in the San Antonio Medical Foundation which was responsible for establishing and developing the South Texas Medical Center. On January 3, 1955, Smith, as spokesman for the Bexar County Medical Society, and Howell Jones of the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce proposed the need of additional hospital facilities and the possibility of erecting a new church-administered hospital to Bishop A. Frank Smith of the Southwest Conference of the Methodist Church. The Church Conference authorized and established such a hospital (Methodist Hospital), which was the first occupant of the South Texas Medical Center. In 1959 the Texas legislature passed a bill proposed by doctors James P. Hollers; John L. Matthews; Merton Minter; John M. Smith, Jr.; Stanley Banks, Jr.; and several other trustees of the San Antonio Medical Foundation, authorizing the creation of the University of Texas South Texas Medical School at San Antonio, which became the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. Smith was subsequently voted Most Outstanding Citizen of San Antonio for his efforts in securing passage of the legislation. In 1963 he served as the initial secretary-treasurer of the newly-opened Southwest Texas Methodist Hospital. He later pushed for the hospital’s 200-bed expansion. Smith played a leading role in the legislative apportionment of $8.2 million for a dental school and likewise funds to offset the construction cost of the teaching hospital. He was involved in land acquisition and development and served the other bodies of the South Texas Medical Center, including the Methodist Hospital, Cancer Therapy and Research Center (CTRC), University Hospital, and others. He even worked out the logistics of the Medical Center with connecting the facilities to bus transportation and public utilities as chairman of medical facilities under Dr. Merton Minter and the Bexar County Medical Society.

Smith's community and professional involvement included serving as the president of the Bexar County Medical Society in 1967 and president of the Texas Medical Association in 1977. He served as a trustee of San Antonio Medical Foundation for more than thirty years. He was also chairman of the American Medical Association Political Action Committee and the Texas Medical Association Board of Trustees. Smith was honored with the Distinguished Service Award of the American Medical Association, Distinguished Service Award of the Texas Medical Association, the Golden Aesculapius Award of the Bexar County Medical Society, C. D. Taylor Award of the Tulane University Medical School, and Distinguished Alumnus of North Texas University. He was appointed to the Texas State Board of Health by Governor John Connally, and he served for twelve years. Smith was a practicing physician and surgeon for more than fifty-five years. He and his son, J. Marvin Smith III, were the only father–son pair to serve as president of the Bexar County Medical Society.

Smith’s children established the John M. Smith, Jr., MD Professorship in Family Practice at the University of Texas Health Science Center in his honor. John Smith Drive in the South Texas Medical Center in San Antonio is named for him. John Marvin Smith, Jr., died on March 16, 2003, in San Antonio. He was buried in Mission Burial Park South in that city.