Mechanic to Seminarian to Missionary Minister: A Life Transformed
Eldred Paschal Smith: 1892-1955
Lorene Smith Jandy’s second youngest brother, Eldred Paschal
Smith, was a bit of a mystery. I had only discovered census records and draft
cards, which offered brief and very scattered snapshots of his life. He changed
not just cities of residence every decade, but also moved to new states. He
changed careers as well. I was left with many questions until I found his
obituary last month. To my surprise, the obituary ignored the years I was familiar
with, focusing only on his career as a Presbyterian minister! According to the
obituary, this career began at a seminary in Austin, Texas when Eldred was
nearly 34 years old. So that’s where I resurrected my research: I searched the online
archives of the Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and found two yearbooks
that revealed a new side to Eldred Smith.
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| Willis and Cora Smith in back, Nina and Eldred Smith in front |
Eldred was born January 14, 1892 in Owensboro, Kentucky. He
was the tenth of Willis and Margaret Benton Smith’s eleven children. Willis was
a Presbyterian minister in the Owensboro area for decades before Eldred’s birth.
Eldred was only six years old when his mother Margaret died of tuberculosis in
1898. Willis married Cora Leachman shortly afterwards, and in 1900 he moved his
family to the Oklahoma Territory to do mission work and start churches.
Eldred’s half-sister Lorene was born there in 1904 when Eldred was eleven years
old.
Eldred and his younger brother Charlie grew up in Oklahoma
and New Mexico with their half-sister Lorene. The 1910 census found him at age
18 living in Melrose, New Mexico with his father, stepmother and siblings, and
working as a farm laborer.
Rev. Willis Smith returned to Kentucky sometime around 1914
0r 1915 with his wife and daughter Lorene, as they were in residence when
Willis’ eldest son Frampton died in January 1916. Frampton’s obituary states
that Eldred and Charlie were still living in Melrose, New Mexico.
Eldred must have moved to Colorado shortly after that; he
registered for the World War I draft on June 5, 1917 in Denver, stating that he
was working as a mechanic, was single, and was caring for his sister and three
children (this may refer to his sister Maude Smith Douthitt, who was divorcing
her husband and ended up living in Denver). This is very curious, as back in Jenkins,
Kentucky, a young Kentucky girl, Nina Roberts, gave birth to Eldred’s son,
Robert Cecil Smith, on October 21, 1917. Since Eldred told the draft board he
was single just four months earlier, this may indicate little Robert may have
been born out of wedlock. I have been unable to find a marriage record for
Eldred and Nina, so cannot confirm when Eldred returned to Kentucky, and when
he married Nina.
By 1920, Eldred and Nina were definitely married. They
appear on the 1920 census living in Jenkins, Letcher County, Kentucky with
their two-year-old son. Eldred, age 29, is working as a chauffeur/mechanic at a
garage. Nina is only twenty, so had just been a teenager when Robert Cecil was
born.
Thus far, Eldred sounds like he was an irresponsible,
restless man—not your typical minister’s son. However, that image may be
incorrect, or he may have repented and changed his ways, for he ended up
following his father into ministry in the Presbyterian Church.
By 1926, Eldred and Nina had moved to Austin, Texas, where
he enrolled at the Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Nina was also
enrolled as a “Special Student”—women in that era were not allowed to become
ministers, so she, along with other women and seminarian wives, took classes to
prepare her for a supporting role in the church.
The seminary yearbook provided me with a photo of Eldred,
who looked deceptively young despite his likely being several years older than
most of his classmates.
The yearbook also had photos of the seminary campus and the
dining hall—it appears to have been an attractive place to live and work.
The yearbook also provided information on Eldred’s first
pastoral appointments: he spent the summer after his junior year (1928) preaching
at a church in Junction, Texas, a small town 140 miles west of Austin, and
after his senior year, he was posted to a church in Chaudrant, Louisiana.
Eldred and Nina’s second son, James Willis Smith, was born on
October 26, 1928 while Eldred was a seminarian.
It isn’t clear when Eldred left the Chaudrant, LA church. He
was still there at the time of the 1930 census. He also served as minister in
churches in Mississippi and Texas. The 1940 census found him serving as a
minister in Marion, Texas, just outside of San Antonio. When he completed his
World War II draft registration in April 1942, he was the minister of a church
in Brinkley, Arkansas. (His draft card also reveals that he was only 5 feet 2 ½
inches tall!)
His longest ministry was in Arizona. His obituary states that
he took a position at the Leupp Presbyterian Navajo Indian Mission in July
1946. He remained as minister of the mission’s Presbyterian church until his
death in December 1955.
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| The Leupp Presbyterian Church |
Eldred was probably well-suited to this sort of life, having grown up in rugged New Mexico before statehood, another area with a large Native American population. His arrived shortly after the federal government closed the Indian boarding school in Leupp, where native children had been forcibly enrolled. Many Native American families had horrible experiences with these Bureau of Indian Affairs schools. Students were punished for speaking in their native language, suffered hunger and were severely disciplined and sometimes abused.
It is to be hoped that Eldred provided a more compassionate and decent example of white America to the Navajo residents. The school had made up the greater part of the town of Leupp, so Eldred’s church and mission lands, identified on the map below, were isolated outpostson the Navajo reservation far east of Flagstaff. Most of the Navajo did not speak English, as the article above alludes to in the mention of Eldred's interpreters, Mr. and Mrs. Everett Curley. It must have been a lonely life, but Eldred and Nina soldiered on for nine years.
Without the information in the seminary yearbook, I would
have had a difficult time tracing the latter half of Eldred’s life. His first
34 years of life were a decided contrast to the last 29 years. I am so grateful
that I found the last chapter of his life story where he transformed from a
promiscuous garage mechanic to a missionary minister.
Sources:
Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary Bulletin (yearbook) 1928 and 1929. https://www.austinseminary.edu/library/austin-seminary-archives/digitized-resources
List of Navajo missions. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED068262.pdf
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