OUR SMITH FAMILY STORY PART EIGHT by Lorena May Smith Stahlbaum, my Aunt 10/30/2013

In November on election day when the farmers came into town to vote, a big barbecue was set up on the court house lawn, where everyone could get a BBQ beef sandwich, voter or not. Children, too, and we took advantage of it. In winter there was a skating rink in the park, or out at the gravel pit where the boys swam in the summer. Later we had a pool in town. Saturday movies were a dime, ice cream cones a nickle. My mother said to me once when I was older that she felt bad when she didn't have a quarter to spare sometimes for something we wanted. I told her "Mama, we never even missed it." We never felt deprived. Times were tough in those years, a lot of people were out of work, and came on the railroad looking for it. Many a time Mama would give them a bowl of soup or a sandwich on the back steps. it would not do to ask them in the house. She had a big garden with about any vegetable you can name; melons, and rhubarb; and we picked fruit and had berries offered to us from other orchards. We always had plenty to eat, and share. My mother was a wonderful cook. She canned all the fruits and vegetables, made candies like a professional candy maker. She created a number of artful things, designed some of my dresses. I learned later that when I passed one house on the way to school, the girls would rush to the window to see what I was wearing. We always said that Mama had been born fifty years too soon, or she could have had a career of some kind, and had an easier life. My mother not only helped people do housecleaning, but also wallpapering, cleaning the church and she also did the offices of two grain companies in the evening. Once she went to one office and saw a man there she didn't recognize, so she quietly left before he saw her, went to the house next door and called the sheriff, who caught the man red-handed, robbing the safe. Sometimes I would go to the offices with her and help dust while she would vacuum and mop. Most other work was dome at home and when we were in school.

2009 POST ON THE DEATH OF JEAN RANKIN SMITH by Carol Jean Smith

DEATH NOTICE I am sad to relate that on September 8 I received a letter informing me that my Aunt Jean Smith, the wife of Robert Neil Smith, my deceased uncle, passed away peacefully on September 2nd, 2009, at her apartment in Glacier Hills, Ann Arbor, Michigan. She was my godmother and namesake, Jean being my middle name. The letter told me a little about her past year, and reminded me she would have been 97 on Sept. 16th: Quote:" As usual, she had an eventful year, living life to it's fullest, and embracing changes along the way. It included a trip to Boston the end of June where we boarded a ship and cruised to Bar Harbor, Halifax, Sydney, Prince Edward Island, Quebec City and Montreal." Also, :"Another highlight was visiting the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec city where Jean and Neil spent their honeymoon in 1946." "A few weeks ago, Jean announced that she had decided not to be 97 years old, because, 'that was too old'. So we celebrated her 96 and 11/12th birthday on August 16th with cake, balloons and a few friends. she then put the rest of her affairs in order and went quietly to sleep." I won't be able to attend her memorial service on September 12th in Bad Axe, Michigan, and will be sad to have missed it. Jean and Neil had no children of their own in their lifetime, but because of their involvement in so many public community endeavors, and the establishment of the Jean M.R. Smith Foundation to afford local high schoolers 4 year college scholarships, I think my Aunt Jean and Uncle Neil parented many wonderful children in their lifetime. Together, they were sparkling examples for me to continue my education and enjoy life. Jean was legally blind her last years of life, yet she grasp life and gave it to all around her. I still see the lovely large peony bushes in her backyard garden and the cat she had. I still have the story they wrote when I was young, "Lanky, the stork". "Sing with the angels, and Aunt Lorena, my father and mother, Aunt Jean. You deserve a crown with many jewels. I loved you." Carol Jean

OUR SMITH FAMILY STORY PART SEVEN by Lorena May Smith Stahlbaum, my Aunt. 3/17/2010

We went to school in Port Austin until the end of September, then moved back to Bad Axe. I was in the third grade, not too happy about it because the arithmetic book was different from what I had started with in the other school, and the teacher thought the best way to make me learn was to slap my hands with a ruler after school. My sister put a stop to that when she caught her at it. Of course for that time on I disliked all mathematics. Oddly enough every job I had was to do with that in after years. Whoever made arrangements for our rented house we moved into didn't care much that it was unfurnished, uninsulated and hard to heat. Still, I suppose there were few places

for rent, especially to a single mother of five children and for low rent. Mama took care of that shortly. She had a job as custodian in the Episcopal church, where we all went to Sunday school. One of the elders was a vice president in a bank, found a house for us at the east end of town, a comfortable bungalow with weathered siding. Now we had lived midtown, north, south and west of town. I guess we didn't know whether we were uptown or downtown people, or care. We were still young enough that the boys would build racers and scooters to coast sown the slight grade that ran down the street for three blocks and ended in fields. We also had fun with a wagon made up like a covered wagon of the old west. Arthur was always giving magic lantern shows to a bunch of his cronies. Neil had a paper route, when his Boy Scout meetings interfered with his deliveries, it was I who took over for him. Don eventually grew into just our street for a route of his own. There were tent shows with plays, the chataugua, and so called medicine shows to go to, with their spiels and vaudeville acts. We watched the circus unload at the depot and parade the elephants and animal cages up Main Street; band concerts some summer evenings on the court house lawn. Summer was a care free time. Before school started in the Fall there was a County Fair for a week in late August. Even if we didn't get to go to it we had fun after all the booths were gone looking for findings left behind, especially coins dropped here and there and in the the Grandstand, where people sat to watch the horse races and entertainment. All the youngsters in town would congregate at the fairgrounds, then. HAPPY CHRISTMAS 2010 TO ALL SMITHS AROUND THE WORLD!

I'M A SMITH AGAIN!

Yes! Finally SMITH Again Well, my over 65 friends, yesterday I turned Smith for good, officially. Kind of like becoming ripe or ready. I am ready. Ready to be me again. You may ask, what do you mean? Or even if you don't ask, I'll tell you. I felt in no woman's land for many years now. Not married by way of divorce for over 26 years. And, always being reminded of my past bad choice everytime I signed my name, or got a sales call, or whatever. I cringed each time, thinking, I'm not that person. And, it didn't help his new wife had the same initials and was referred to the name I had yet. Yuk! Well, no more. I am comfortably Carol Smith now. I know her. I can say at age 67 it's great to be me for the rest of this life and the next. You might think it difficult to go back to my maiden name at this time of life, but it was so easy. Who do you want Carol Smith to be? I asked myself? The answer came: "Be yourself, love yourself. This Carol Smith is free to be really me. An artist, a lover, whoever. I would encourage anyone who is wondering what to do with life to go with your flow....become you before it's too late!

HAPPY NEW YEAR FOR 2010

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL SMITHS, EVERYWHERE Just a short message to send you all greetings for a prosperous and healthy new year of 2010. Yikes! 2010! How did this happen? Do you recall 1910? Or how about 1810? Of course not. So who will remember us in 2110? Unless we are famous or rich, no one. Not even our families who will be also old and forgotten. So let's make the most of it while we can. How? Eat, drink and be merry? Sounds tempting. But, alas, to live to 100 we must use our minds to conserve them and our bodies. Changing ourselves for the better is actually freeing to us in our next decade. My biggest change is my last name back to SMITH. Like putting on a new coat that feels like a comfortable glove. It fits right! Resolutions: Make more time for each other....talk, phone, email, write.

OUR SMITH FAMILY STORY PART SIX by Lorena May Smith Stahlbaum, my Aunt. 12/21/2009

Papa sometimes took us to visit Aunt Ellen at the other end of town. He would play his violin, taught me to dance the Highland Fling, and the Irish washerwoman jig. He also took us to visit Aunt Harriet, up in Grindstone City on Lake Huron a time or two for a picnic or a swim. We had to walk down to the station at the East end to take the train. A lot of trains passed through Bad Axe into the 1920's, as there were two big grain companies in town, business people traveled to the cities by train, and up to cottages on the lake. Not many people had cars, there were often very many farmers in town with horses and wagons, or bobsleds in winter. Though the days of stage coaches was long past, old Mr. Shafer had one he used as a taxi to take travelers from th Depot to the hotels. The car I remember most is an electric car that old Mrs. Hanson had, she was not so very old, probably; nor was Mr. Safer as it seemed to me. Other relatives in town did not register on my mind because I never saw much of them until later on. My mother and father were divorced when I was about 8 years old. Papa took a job in Flint, MI. as an auxillary policeman guard in an auto factory. In those days, divorce was frowned upon, but my mother was well liked and respected, she had to cope with five children without much help or money, she did so very well. My father was not often in town after that. It must have been the summer of 1922, Mama took a job working for the Ford family....not Henry...in Point Aus Barques on the lake. It was an exclusive resort where wealthy people had big cottages. A chauffer picked her up each morning and brought her home each evening to the house we were renting in Port Austin, also on Lake Huron, a few miles from where she worked. Dorothy was about fifteen then and looked after us. We all had things we were supposed to do. My main job was keeping track of Donnie, who was about four, or so. Mostly it was a lot like having a cottage at the shore, except that we were not right on the lake.

OUR SMITH FAMILY STORY PART FIVE by Lorena May Smith, my Aunt. 10/7/2009

The Christmas Donald was born she made me a whole layette for a small baby doll, which was why, probably, that I had not much interest in him, Arthur thought he was his personal present. Neil, not much older than I didn't take too much interest either. Dorothy told me in after years that she just looked on him as another baby to sit. We all loved each other anyway, but being so young we were self absorbed, interested and excited about Christmas. We always had a Xmas tree with candles on it, but Mama would not light them because she was so afraid of fire, having been in a couple of forest fires up north. Mama also made most of our clothes, even the boys, she made alot of her own patterns. She was often asked to make some things for other peoples children. The town had a loud whistle which blew at 7, 12, & 6 pm. and for fires or other disasters. There were a couple of fires that I vividly remember. One we watched from the upstairs landing that lit up the whole town. We thought it was the school, but it was a livery stable behind one of the hotels in the middle of town. Unfortunately, some of the horses did not get out before it burned down. A few years later a whole block of stores on Main Street burned down and it was a while before they were all replaced.