It was good to hear from you. How we would enjoy seeing you, Dianne and the little ones.

In regard to Grandfather Smith (your Great Grand Father) I am enclosing separately something of what I remember of what was told me. I saw him only once at our home in Modesto Illinois. He lived in Missouri, but can't recall the town. He had a wife there and three children I believe one named Robert and who also visited us later- a half brother to your Grandfather (my father)

When grandfather visited us in Modesto, he and I seemed to have quite a lot of like interests. He was nearly blind, but alert. In England he had passed apprenticeship as a painter and learned to make his own paints and grind his own colors. There used to be an old hand mill in Staunton Illinois where his first family lived. After returning to Missouri, he wrote to me and sent me some interesting things, for instance, how to mix chemicals to produce colored fireworks, how to mix olive oil, and copper sulfate solution and sharpened dulled files etc. He told me of taking tin-type pictures in the Civil War, in which I believe he was a captain. And he sent me the old camera with a large barrel type lense with a pinion adjustment, I converted the camera to hold glass plates about 2 1/2 inches square, and took many pictures with it. When we left the homestead in Wyoming the lense was in a trunk, stored with the renter, but after they moved, the trunk had been ransacked by the boy of the family, and I found only one of the two compound lenses in the back yard. Every thing else was gone. I still have the lense which measures two and one eighth inches in diameter. The lense was named C.C. Harrison, and was what was known as quarter size portrait.

In the narrative, as I remember it, there are some things of which we may not be proud at having ancestory blood of which we might blush to acknowledge, and in order to soften the effect, have compiled some statistics to proove that none of us may hope to escape the hazards like for instance mark Twains skeleton in his family tree.

Let us go back just 30 generations, approximately 600 years and see what a mass of humanity had a part in our individual creation. How could we hope to escape a few cut-throats, murders, thieves, in our lineage, and whose genes we are by nature compelled to pro-create, if we do indeed pro-create!

Thirty generations, represented by the figure 2 to the thirtieth power (you might have your dad check these figures)          1,206,439,928 Individuals (Webmasters NOTE: checked and it is 1,073,741,824)


         Standing a little over twelve inches apart - no I mean standing in a space of a little over twelve inches side to side would reach the earth to the moon - 250,000 miles

         If we greeted each of them, taking one minute to each one, day an night with out stopping to eat, sleep, and perform the necessary, and un-necessary, wise and foolish, acts it would take us only 281 years

So we may philosophize, that we had no part in their creation, and are therefore not responsible for their genes floating around somewhere in our individual cosmos! Which makes it possible to share Ben Franklin's observation that it is so convenient to be a human being - makes it possible to find an excuse, or invent one for anything we may wish to do.

So much for FOOL-OSOPHY

O yes - on the credit side, one of grandfather's sisters served as English Governness in the house of the Czar of Russia twenty years. I have her picture somewhere maybe stored with Edith. Also a picture of Grandfathers brother and wife, very substantial looking people, and a picture of grandfather himself, with a large head, that is typical of the intelligent.

Grandfather Smith was born in England Francis Cook Curle, where he served an apprenticeship in painting, at which time he learned to make and mix his own paints. He took up art, and was one of those expert in making gold leaf and mother of pearl signs. It is said he did some frescoes in Washington D.C. but cannot be substantiated.

The story as I remember it being told me when I was about 14 years old, was that when grandfather was about 18 or 19 he and a cousin were serving in the British army. It is said they became enamoured with some of the officers wives, and the officers not taking kindly to the situation, framed up something for which grandfather and the cousin were convicted and put in the guardhouse until the penalty of the Cat-O-Nine-Tails was to be administered. In order to escape this humility, which they thought very unjust, they planned to escape, and being near the English Channel, to swim to France. Grandfather no doubt was the one who suggested this, and they did escape, at night, stripped off their clothes, tied the bare necessities to the back of their necks and took off.

Later the cousin turned back and returned to the barracks and told the story and took his punishment. Knowing no one could swim the English Channel in the night, alone, they made a search on land. Not finding him he was given up for dead. But not grandpa! He made it! Arriving on the coast of France, he stowed away in a ship, and after it reached the high seas, came out of hiding. Of course he served swabbing the deck, which he told me about. "Holy Stoning" he called it, in which a round flat stone was used to scrub the planking until it was white and clean. But his talents were soon realized and he was put to work at his art, and soon won recognition and good will. He had taken the name Smith to hide his identity. He spent three years on the high seas, sailing a "windjammer". He made the trip around the "Horn" and became a captain.

Then one day while off ship decided to take leave and stay in America. He must have been 21 at the time, going westward to Illinois, he met a girl named Sarah Jane Weeks, they fell in love and married. The union produced seven children: J. Wilson, Frank C, Ada, Laura, Clara (who died early) Robert Cornelius, and the last daughter, Lillian Adelle Smith, born soon after grandfather joined the Union forces in the Civil War, and who became blind at age 4, graduated in piano at the school for the blind at Jacksonville Ill. Then graduated with the highest honors at the New England School of Music in Boston, majoring in voice. Then went to Europe for further study. She became nationally acclaimed, but died early in life.

Grandfather did not return to Staunton Illinois and was thought to have been killed in the war. Grandmother was a devout Christian, and a woman of strong character. She managed the family until they all were grown, remaining single. She put the older boys out to painting, a trade taught them by their father. She always had her cow, her chickens, raised pigs and a large garden, feeding all abundantly. Her brother Uncle George lived on a farm nearby, was a thrifty and ingenious man. He showed me how he cut his grain with a cradle, and how to tie a bundle of grain with the straw, which I can do today. He was an expert axe handle maker, and no doubt stood staunchly by his sister and her problem.

Grandfather I estimate was about 30 years of age when he joined the Army. It is conceivable he volunteered. His birth date may have been around 1831.

When I was about 14 years old, father and Aunt Laura decided to apply for a pension for grandmother since she had no other support except what her children could give. She lived alone in the home in Staunton.

Word came from Washington that a man by the name of Francis Cook Smith was receiving a pension, that he lived in Missouri. (sorry I do not recall the town). Father was a telegrapher (which incidentally also were his two brothers Wilson and Frank) working for the railroad in Modesto Illinois, Father got a railroad pass for himself and Aunt Laura, and they went to the town in Missouri. When they came to the house, they recognized him, but he did not recognize them partly because he was nearly blind, and partly because they were little children when he joined the army. He was then Justice of the Peace, and thought another couple had come to be married by him. He had them come in, and Aunt Laura said: "Hello Pa do you recognize us?" He said no, and he could not be their father. Aunt Laura said " OH yes you are I am Laura and this is Robert." Then he broke down and cried. After a long conversation together, he called in his wife and introduced them to her, and told her the story. Then each of the children of his new family, I think two boys, one named Robert, my fathers name.

Later they got passes for grandfather and Robert who visited us in our home. Aunt Laura went to her mother's house and told her about finding grandfather saying he would like to see her, but her wisdom directed her to say "No I want to remember him as he was."

When grandfather died, the question of a widows pension arose which grandmother refused, and a property settlement, which consisted only of a modest home to which grandmother was entitled, she again refused saying that the woman in Missouri was innocent and grandmother signed a deed over to her.

So many questions are unanswered and many characters revealed. Of all I think was the grand decision of grandmother Smith in her generosity to another woman to whom she had lost a husband by leaving home.

NOTE: Clyde A. Smith wrote this account of Francis C. Smith nearly 65 years after he met with Francis at age 14 (1) Francis was closer to 41 than 31 one when he volunteered for service in the Civil War and since he served less than 2 years and Lillie was born in 1867, 2 years after the end of the war I will suggest that the story of his being killed in the war was a fabrication by the family to "cover the fact" he walked out on his Illinois Family. (2) Francis and Mary did not have a son named Robert my guess is that it was either Walter or Roy that my grandfather, Clyde is referring to (3) The fact is it was the generosity of Mary Elizabeth in allowing Sarah to collect Francis's Pension, which she did till her death in 1914. (4) as for the house in Missouri I am not sure Sarah had any claim on it. A few years after Francis's death Mary married a family friend of she and Francis and lived in the house untill her death in 1925. Both Francis and Mary are burried in Camp Vaughn Cemetery near Tuscuembia Missouri.