Springfield, VA, Virginia - Dr. Hadley Edwin Smith passed away at age 96, at home in Springfield, Virginia, on June 28, 2025.

He is survived by wife, Oanh (Robin) Duong Smith; son, James Ashley Smith, born September 13, 1989; stepson, lawyer David Nelson; stepdaughter, Chi Duong; and brother, Sterling Ithamar living in Phippsburg, Maine. Brother, James Wilbur passed away in 2014. He married Martha Maybury July 14, 1952, in Haverhill, Massachusetts, and second wife, Margit Cronmueller, in 1968, in Wiscasset. He married Oanh Duong, in 2006, in Alexandria, Virginia.

Hadley was born February 11, 1929, at home in Palmyra, Maine, son of Wilbur Ashley and Frances Lillian Ireland (Jessome) Smith in the same room where his brothers and father were born. He walked with his brothers to the one-room Adams School on Route 2 in Palmyra for 9 years and graduated from Newport High School in 1947 as president of his class. He attended college at Eastern Nazarene College in Quincy, Massachusetts, majoring in economics, graduating in 1951. He was active in student life as business manager of the yearbook, president of the student council, and elected to Who's Who in American Universities. He spent two semesters in post graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin.

After completing an MA research thesis on plant location in Los Angeles County at the University of Southern California (USC) in 1953 with assistance of LA Chamber of Commerce, he enrolled in Officer Candidate School (OCS) and U.S. Navy Supply Corps School, graduating as Ensign in June 1954 and was assigned to the USS Gunston Hall LSD-5, as Disbursing Officer, then engaged in evacuating material and orphans from Haiphong in North Viet Nam, and transferred later to USS Ernest G. Small DDR-838, a radar picket ship, as Supply Officer and was discharged in May 1957.

He taught economics for one year at SW Missouri State College in Springfield and returned to USC to commence a doctorate in economics, while teaching full time at East Los Angeles College. He completed a 700-page dissertation on the development of corporations for a PhD in economics at USC in 1963. Dr. Smith taught for three years at the University of East Africa in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, followed by one year at University of Maine at Augusta (UMA) as Associate Professor, then one year with Arthur D. Little Inc in Lagos, Nigeria, and later to direct-hire with USAID in Seoul, Korea as project manager of Korea Development Institute for four years and coauthor of the last major ($15 m.) development loan in Korea. He worked as development economist for AID in Saigon and Washington with numerous assignments in Africa including in Abidjan, Khartoum, and Nairobi, retiring in May 1987 with 20 years of service in federal government and returned to the family homestead in Palmyra, which he had purchased in 1984 from brother, James. While in Saigon he sponsored a young student, Oanh Duong (Robin), who wanted to study medicine to become a doctor, who later became his wife, and is a Masters and Nurse Practitioner (NP) graduate of Catholic University.

Dr. Smith has had a lasting impact on the southeast corner of Palmyra. He sold 100 acres of fields to Dana Hartford for dairy crops, and donated 100 acres of woodland to nephew, Doug Smith and 5 acres to brother James for a new house on US 100. In the ensuing years he renovated the homestead building, adding a 3-car garage, landscaped 8 acres, planted 15 acres of trees, purchased the adjoining Anderson farm and set up a commercial subdivision at I-95 on Route 100 and a residential subdivision on Smith Road. He sold 68 acres of frontage on I-95 to Adam Friend and edited and donated to UMA Library a book on ethnic music of West Africa by former late wife, Margit Cronmueller Smith. In addition, he wrote articles and a book, Improving Maine's Economic System and spent winters in Virginia with his family. In June 2019 he sold the homestead and the remaining 28.4 acres of the Smith Farm, which had been in the family since 1853 and donated his library to the University of Maine at Augusta. In 2022, he wrote and produced a 50-page booklet, Post Graduate Years, 1951-1987.