Charles Smith was the first American Baptist agricultural missionary in Zaire, and was also mechanic, teacher and evangelist. He improved local crops and developed an irrigation system. He also produced three textbooks for teaching agriculture in the elementary schools. Born in Iowa, Charles earned a BS degree in agriculture from Iowa State University. He also studied at Cornell and the American Baptist Seminary of the West in Berkeley, California.

Viola Leora Smith studied nursing in Detroit, bacteriology at San Diego State College, laboratory technique and obstetrics at St. Mary’s Hospital in San Diego, as well several others. The Smiths were commissioned in 1921 to serve in the Belgian Congo, now Zaire. They opened the first mission station (Kikongo) in an area of 15,000 square miles. Viola started a hospital while they were still living in a tent.

Viola started a rural baby clinic, which reduced the infant mortality rate from 80% to less than 5%. During her last term, she was head of the school system of 72 village and regional schools, principal of the station school and inaugurated a teacher-training program and a home economics school.

The tribes among whom the Smiths worked made both Charles and Viola honorary chiefs.

Once the Smiths returned home, they were also active in Claremont, California. Viola held various offices in the local Baptist church, and wrote a history of the Baptist church in Congo entitled “Diatungwa va Tadi” which means, “It was built on a Rock.” Charles was awarded an honorary doctorate of divinity by Berkeley Baptist Divinity School.