Teacher, citizen of the world who bonded cultures, family

Alice Smolkovich was a citizen of the world — traveler, teacher and friend to everybody.

The longtime Etna resident, who taught languages at Shaler Area High School for 42 years, died Monday at the age of 83 after a battle with dementia.

For many years, Ms. Smolkovich was the primary link between her family in America and the old country where her parents were born.

The daughter of the late John P. Smolkovich of Croatia and Justine Bukevic Smolkovich of Slovenia, Ms. Smolkovich’s adventures as an informal ambassador to the republics of the former Yugoslavia began in 1954 as a student at the University of Pittsburgh.

As a junior studying business, Ms. Smolkovich won a scholarship through the Pitt Nationality Rooms to travel to what was then Yugoslavia. It was that trip, in which she met her grandparents and other family members, that inspired Ms. Smolkovich to pursue a career in languages.

“I spent time with my grandmother in Slovenia and couldn’t speak a word to her,” Ms. Smolkovich recalled during a 1990 interview with the Post-Gazette, after winning the teacher of the year award from the Pennsylvania State Modern Language Association.

“Alice was the bond between Pittsburgh and our family in Europe,” said Ms. Smolkovich’s niece Justine Brown.

Over the next 50 years, Ms. Smolkovich and her sister Mildred, a social worker, traveled routinely to Croatia and Slovenia to help their extended family however they could.

At times, Ms. Smolkovich came back with only the clothes on her back, Ms. Brown recalled.

“They helped them through some very difficult times,” Ms. Brown said.

Ms. Smolkovich taught business briefly at the former Leetsdale High School before concentrating on languages.

She came to Shaler Area High School in 1960 and taught Spanish, German and Serbo-Croatian until her retirement in 2002.

“She is an exceptional teacher and person who has dedicated herself to the advancement of foreign languages not only in the district but also in the state,” said then-principal William Suit about what he called Ms. Smolkovich’s “well-deserved” award in 1990.

Much of Ms. Smolkovich’s life centered on her house in Etna, where she tended a prized vegetable and flower garden and often hosted foreign exchange teachers and others.

“She lived in the house up on the hill that her father built for his five daughters,” Ms. Brown said.

Visitors who walked into her home on weekends would be greeted with a plate of kielbasi and might hear ethnic programs — such as the “Slovenian Hour” — on the radio. They would inevitably be offered plants or vegetables from her garden too, Ms. Brown recalled.

“Her flowers were always beautiful,” Ms. Brown said. “She prided herself on her cannas. She had to dig them up every fall and she loved compost. She used to say ‘making compost is like soup — the more things you have in it, the better the compost.’”

Ms. Smolkovich was the last surviving sister in her family. She never married, but she adopted a distant cousin from Croatia in 1991 to enable her to receive an education in the U.S.

Nevenka Smolkovich DePasquale was adopted by Ms. Smolkovich when she was 22 and survives, along with her husband and three children.

Ms. Smolkovich’s Etna home was a favorite stopover for many foreign teachers, doctors and others, who were often sent to her home by the Pittsburgh Council for International Visitors.

“Through the council she would meet people, bring them into the city from the airport, take them to dinner and entertain them and just show them the city,” Ms. Brown said.

Ms. Smolkovich was also musically gifted, an alto who performed with the St. Paul’s Cathedral Choir for over 30 years. She also played the accordion to help fund her college education.

But more than anything, Ms. Smolkovich was a person who could not tolerate injustice, remembers her friend of 30 years, Karen Ulrich.

“She was crazy,” said Ms. Ulrich, who taught English in the room across the hall from Ms. Smolkovich at Shaler High. “She was very opinionated and stubborn. If she thought something wasn’t right, she would lecture the school board about it, whether it was foreign languages or any other thing that came up.”

One of her favorite memories of her friend was when she was forced to write an essay about the dangers of speeding after receiving a traffic ticket. In her usual style, Ms. Smolkovich chose to fight the ticket with a hearing rather than paying the fine, Ms. Ulrich said.

“Driving with Alice was an experience — she would sightsee when she drove,” Ms. Ulrich said.

Ms. Smolkovich was asked by Shaler police to translate Spanish for some scofflaws arrested at a grocery store, her friend remembers.

“She tried to be friends with everybody,” Ms. Ulrich said. “She helped neighbors and friends if she could. She went into everything wholeheartedly.”

A burial service is scheduled for 10 a.m. Friday at All Saints Church in Etna.

Donations may be made to the Society to Preserve the Millvale Murals of Maxo Vanka, 24 Maryland Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15209, or University of Pittsburgh Nationality Rooms, Yugoslav Committee, http://www.nationalityrooms.pitt.edu/ node/560.