Elizabeth Rudel Smith

She was born in Montreal, the daughter of a Canadian-American industrialist who owned the Rudel Machinery Company, attended Smith College and graduated in 1937 from the University of Michigan.

In 1942, she moved to California when she married San Francisco businessman Frederick H. Smith IV, her third husband, whom she later divorced. She married again in 1962, to Savings and Loan executive Albert W. Gatov, who died in 1978.

Mrs. Gatov returned to her Marin home from Washington in 1962 and remained active in Democratic politics for the next 20 years. She was a close friend of the Kennedy family and many other prominent Democrats.

Mrs. Gatov first became active in Democratic politics during the Truman presidential campaign of 1948. After working with the Coro Foundation in San Francisco to train young men and women for careers in politics and government, she chaired the Marin County Democratic Party, and, in 1956, was chosen as Democratic National Committeewoman from California, joining Los Angeles lawyer Paul Ziffren, the National Committeeman, as liaison with the national Democratic Party. She held that Party post until her appointment in the Kennedy Administration, which also followed brief service in Sacramento as Deputy Labor Commissioner for Governor Pat Brown.

Smith's signature, as used on American currency

• Inventory of the Elizabeth R. Gatov Papers, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library
• Obituary, New York Times, February 9, 1997