Culture
Local Author Looks Back on Legacy of Dr. Abbott “Pete” Smith
By: Emily Votaw
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Dr. Abbott Pliny “Pete” Smith III, D.V.M. passed away in 2010, after decades of work on all manners of animals large and small in and around Athens County. Smith lived a fascinating life, one that has been recently documented by Gina McKnight of Monday Creek Publishing in her three volumes, Milliron: Abbott “Pete” Smith, D.V.M., The Biography; Tails of a Country Vet; and The South High Horseman.
“Dr. Pete Smith was an icon in Southeast Ohio, and we continue to be inspired and motivated by him and his life,” said McKnight. “His legacy is huge. I’m still connected with the hundreds of people I have interviewed about him, and many of them have become very good friends.”
“I know when I speak to other veterinarians who worked with him in situations he would have handled (…) they often ask themselves what would he (Smith) would have done,” said Smith’s daughter, Jessica Fox-Smith. “He was very practical and grounded; he wasn’t going to send animals off to keep them alive for the people who were having a hard time with the idea of losing their animals. He wanted solutions that helped preserve the integrity of the relationship of the person and their animal, and was affordable, and was a good solution for the animal, and caused the least amount of pain for the animal.”
Listen to WOUB’s interview with McKnight and Fox-Smith, embedded above, about the preservation of Dr. Pete Smith’s legacy and McKnight’s ongoing efforts to preserve it.