August 21, 1900

Mary Elizabeth Smith Massey was born into an average middle-class mountain family in Marshall (Searcy County). She became one of the earliest women’s success stories in Arkansas by forming and serving as president of the Citizens Bank. In the 1950s, she reaped the rewards of her early endeavors by serving as Worthy Grand Matron of the Arkansas Order of the Eastern Star and by being admitted to practice law before the U.S. Supreme Court.