Members of four generations of the Bixby/Smith/Dudley families have not only graduated from the College, but have also married other Pomona graduates. "Our daughter, Heather Dudley '93 who married Adam Silverblatt '94 in June 1999, represents the fourth generation to marry another Pomona graduate," says Steve Dudley '63 (See SCRAPBOOK, page 55). "This is a 'first' for the family and perhaps the College as well."
Members of two different Smith families, Arthur Maxon Smith and Maud Smith, graduated with Pomona's first class in 1894. The Bixby and Smith families were joined with the marriage of Arthur M. Smith '94 to Sarah Bixby. Llewellyn Bixby '01 was elected to Pomona's Board of Trustees in 1909, and his cousin, Susannah Bixby Bryant, became the first woman elected to the board in 1929. In Granite and Sagebrush, the 1944 history of Pomona College by Frank Brackett, Bryant's late arrival to her first board meeting was acknowledged with some humor. Then Chair George Marston rushed to her aid and responded to her apology with, "Mrs. Bryant, we have been waiting 40 years for a woman, and 40 minutes cuts no figure."
Other members of the family have also been integral in the development and growth of the College. Arthur M. Smith '94 served on the Philosophy faculty for five years. Llewellyn Bixby '01 was responsible for the Brackett Observatory in the famed Wash, and his son, Llewellyn Bixby, Jr. '30, was more recently involved in the redesign of the Bixby Plaza outside Frary Dining Hall. Two other family members, though not graduates of Pomona, were also important to the College's history: Nathan Weston Blanchard was a founding trustee and Martha Hathaway was an early benefactor of the College.
Thanks to Steve Dudley '63 for providing the bulk of the genealogical research for this issue of the Pomona College Family Tree.
