Lasting Memories

Eleanor Herz Swent
June 4, 1924-May 24, 2026
Palo Alto, California

Author, historian, teacher, and world traveler Eleanor “Lee” Herz Swent died on May 24, 2026, surrounded by loved ones and just short of her 102nd birthday.

Eleanor Martha Herz was born June 4, 1924 in her family’s home in Lead, South Dakota to Janet Herz Kimpston and Nathaniel Herz. She graduated from Lead High School, and graduated from Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts in 1945 as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She worked at Elmira College in New York, then earned a Master’s Degree cum laude from Denver University in Denver, Colorado, in 1947.

Eleanor married Langan Waterman Swent in 1947. They first lived in Tayoltita, Mexico, where Langan worked at San Luis silver mine and Lee learned to speak Spanish, ride a mule, and cook on a wood stove. They had three children during this time: Jay Kimpston “Kim” Swent, Christine Waterman Swent, and Richard Langan Swent. Lee published Landing Uphill, Seven Years at San Luis based on her letters from this time.

The family moved to Lead, South Dakota in 1954. They lived in Grants, New Mexico, 1957-66, and had a fourth child, Jeannette Frazier Swent. The family moved to Piedmont, California, in 1966, where Lee lived until 2005, when she moved to the Vi in Palo Alto.

Lee obtained a teaching credential in 1967 and taught English as a Second Language in Chinatown in Oakland, California until 1986. Many of her students were refugees whose stories she later published in Asian Refugees in America, Narratives of Escape and Adaptation.

Lee worked at the Regional Oral History Office (ROHO, now the Oral History Center) at UC Berkeley as a Senior Research Interviewer / Editor 1985-2005 and was director of the “Western Mining in the Twentieth Century” series of oral histories.

Lee was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Letters degree in 1998 from The South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. She served as president of the Mining History Association. In 2023, Lee was awarded the Clark Spence Award by the Mining History Association for her book One Shot for Gold, Developing a Modern Mine in Northern California. In 2024 the Mining History Association gave her the Rodman Paul Award for her contributions.

Lee was preceded in death by her son, Kim (1990), and Langan (1992). She is survived by children Christine Byrd (Studio City, CA), Richard Swent (m. Catherine Crawford-Swent, Palo Alto, CA), and Jeannette Swent (m. Jeff Fleming, Placitas, NM); nine grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren. The family will hold a private memorial service at Mountain View Cemetery at a later date.