Ola Delight Smith

Ola Delight Lloyd Smith (January 21, 1880 – December 5, 1958) was an American telegrapher, journalist, and labor activist.

Her father, John Alva Lloyd, was a farmer; her mother, Celeste Crawford "Lettie" Long, died when Ola was nine.

[1] While the family was living in Epes, Alabama, Ola became interested in telegraphy and used a practice set at home to learn Morse code.

In 1901, Ola married Edgar B. Smith, a traveling salesman, and the couple moved to Birmingham, Alabama, where she managed a Western Union office.

Ola Delight Smith played an active role in the strike, which ended in defeat for the union in November 1907.

[3] To supplement her husband's meager and erratic income, she entered into a variety of ventures, including running a boarding house, writing business letters, and providing general secretarial services.

The mill owners began to clandestinely circulate attacks on her reputation, resulting in her being dismissed as strike leader in November 1914.

[5] Ola Delight Smith left Atlanta and resumed her work as a telegrapher, operating for the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway in Texas.

After being told by doctors that her condition was incurable, she began to treat herself with a home remedy recommended by neighbors, and pronounced herself cured in an affidavit she wrote in 1938.