Vesta Smith was born on July 10, 1937, in Bluffdale, Utah, to Reynold Wilford Crump and Myrtle Almira Frost. She attended Utah State University for a short time and then decided to pack up and move with some girl friends to California. Once there she worked as a stenographer for McKinsey & Company, a management consulting firm. She also spent some time in Hawaii and as a student at Brigham Young University. She married Dr. Joseph Smith on August 23, 1963 in the Logan Utah Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Joe had six children from a previous marriage, most of whom would live with them in Salt Lake City. Additionally, they had two daughters together. The Smith family moved to Washington, D.C., in 1974, when Joe began law school. Vesta also went back to school at George Washington University. She began working for a mother's volunteer organization, the American Mothers, Inc.