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Dwight Lloyd Smith (b. 04 Jun 1906, d. 27 Jul 1979)

Dwight Lloyd Smith (son of William Larkin Smith and Charlottie Jane Arnold)⁹⁵ was born 04 Jun 1906 in Collins -St. Clair County - Missouri^{96, 97}, and died 27 Jul 1979 in Pueblo - Pueblo County - Colorado^{98, 99}. He married Gladys Adair Hickman on 10 Jun 1930 in Pueblo - Pueblo County - Colorado⁹⁹.

Notes for Dwight Lloyd Smith:
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Dwight Lloyd Smith was a Quaker Minister

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DWIGHT LLOYD SMITH

This short note is not an autobiography nor can it be considered a story of my life. My daughter, Beverly Dunn knows very little of the early years of my life so I am typing a few notes for her that she may know from my own hand some of the interesting things concerning her Daddy.
I was born, (so they told me) at Collins, Missouri, June 4, 1906; born in the farm house 4 1/2 miles sourhwest of town, at my birth my mother was attended by a Dr. Longacre. I suppose that there are very few living now who remember that eventful morning... My brother Arnold says that he remembers that the night before he was allowed to stay all night with his little friend who lived a half mile away and the next morning when he came home they told him that he had a little brother, ME! I don't remember anything about it. We resided on the same farm )or rock pile) until I was nine years of age at which tiem we let the wood-ticks, chiggers and saw briers have that place and we moved to Pawnee County Kansas for one year. I completed the third grade in school at the little country school in Missouri. The name the county gave the school was Harvard but by those who attended it was lovingly called LIZARD-LICK. You can guess why.
In Kansas we lived on rented places the last one being on the cross roads three miles north of Garfield, Kansas from which place on Tuesday, April 17th at 3:20 P.M. with our worldly possessions loaded in a covered wagon, except that we had five head of cattle which I walked and drove )when I got too tired Earnest would drive them awhile and I would ride a short way in the covered wagon. We were headed for a homestead in Bent County Colorado. It was really a wearysome trip for all of us, but 17 days later on May 3rd at 5:40 P.M. we arrived at the homestead, the place 32 miles southeast of Las Animas, Colorado which was our trading center- -nearest town was Caddo 28 miles away and the nearest neighbors were far away (few and far between).
It was three years before we got a school district and a school so my schoolastic training was badly stunted at the fourth grade level. However when we did get a school I completed the 8th grade in June. The school was four miles from our ranch and I either walked or rode my pony back and forth to school.
However in later yars I found that my education was far better in riding broncs or branding cattle than it was in book learning. Although the Homestead life was certainly a life of privation there were some joys along the way if you knew where to look for them. Also there were a few painful spots most of those coming when you were not looking for them. I remember once when I was riding my pony far too rapidly down a winding cow-path around a sharp bend in the path around a giant boulder wheich completely hid the path in front and suddenly there was a big whitefaced bull lying in the path ahead, as the pony arrived he got up, that is the last I remember. I came to several hours later and found my well trained pony only a few yards away. I arrived home several hous later than planned and I don't think my mother would ever have believed my story of the delay except for the big knot on my head.
Times were hard and money was a scarce article but we were a frugal family to illustrate that point when we moved to the homestead (lovingly called DRYLAND) we had a trailer behind the wagon. It was made from an old buggy. The body of the buggy had been removed and a chicken coop built on, 3 dozen chickens in it, an oil burning cook stove tied to the side of it. Mother would set her yeast and the bread would raise as we traveled. When we stopped for noon the horses needed an hour extra rest anyway so mother would find a level spot of ground, fire up the stove and bake bread and of course with the chickens and cows we had eggs, milk, butter and fresh bread all the way.
Another funny thing that happened on that eventful trip the day we were loading up the covered wagon getting ready to move out my mother after she had swept the floor of the old house brought her broom to the wagon and slipped it into the side of the load for she knew dad was just a little supersticious. He believed that if you moved a broom it would SWEEP YOU ON. Well Dad saw the broom and pulled it out of the wagon and threw it away, Mother saw wheat happened but said nothing to him but I asked why he threw it away and she told me but she said, "he don't know that if you move chickens they will SCRATCH YOU BACK". Well mother wasn't supposed to know about the broom but when we went through Caddo, the last town on the road, Mother just gently said to Dad, "Will, I will need a broom". Dad looked rather sheepish for a moment but when he came form the store with a month's supply of groceries there was a new broom in the lot.
As I understood the agreement for proving up the homestead, we were to live on the land for 7 months of each year for 3 years and have at least 40 acres fenced and under cultivation at the end of the three years. Well we lived there continually and at the end of3 years had over 40 acres fenced and under cultivation so we got a government deed to the 320 acres Southwest 1/4 section 5 and Northwest 1/4 section 8 township 27 range 50 in Bent County, Colorado. Our hoem there was a half dug-out )half under ground and half above ground) the upper part was stone just laid on the dirt wall of the basement part and often especially if it happpeded to rain a lot the dirt wall would give away and the stone wall would be in the floor but each time that it caved in we would repair by building from the basement floor up with stone and set the stones inn cement sometines when Dad wa away I was the MASON so I suspect some of that wall is still standing. (Sorry, I can't pat myself on the back right now).

More About Dwight Lloyd Smith:
Fact 1: Burial - Imperial Memorial Garden - Pueblo, Colorado.⁹⁹

More About Dwight Lloyd Smith and Gladys Adair Hickman:
Marriage: 10 Jun 1930, Pueblo - Pueblo County - Colorado.⁹⁹

Children of Dwight Lloyd Smith and Gladys Adair Hickman are:

+Beverly Ruth Smith.