Mysterious Disappearance of College Freshman: 52 Ancestors 2025 Prompt “Disappeared”

 

Willis Smith Flees University of Kentucky in 1908

Willis Eugene Smith: 1888-1973 (Maternal Grand-Uncle)

On the evening of September 22, 1908, Willis Eugene Smith, a freshman at the State University of Kentucky, disappeared from his room and failed to return or contact anyone. His family was frantic, the university administration was anxious, and the police began investigating. Where had he gone? What had happened to him? The rumors and speculation grew by the week, egged on by Willis’ brother Ernest, who was convinced his brother met with foul play. Then, three months later, Willis returned as mysteriously as he had left. His own explanations were nearly as wild as the rumors had been.

Willis E. Smith was born January 22, 1888 to parents Margaret Benton Smith and Rev. Willis Smith. He was the eighth of their eleven children. He attended local schools in Owensboro, and was tutored by his older brother, Albert Elias Smith, to prepare him to attend the university.

He enrolled at the University of Kentucky in Lexington—then referred to as Kentucky State University—in the fall of 1908. The following news item describes his going-away-party in Owensboro, emphasizing the respect the community had for college educations and for young Willis. He was twenty years old.

It appears that many university students lived in private accommodations in Lexington rather than in school-built dormitories. Willis’ older brother Ernest, then thirty, was a sophomore at the university, and was boarding in a house owned by a Mrs. Beauchamp. Willis became another of her boarders. She was the president of the local chapter of the Women’s Christian Termperence Union, so ran a respectable establishment.

According to Ernest, Willis seemed to be enjoying his first weeks of college. Ernest saw no sign that he was upset or struggling the evening he disappeared. He said that Willis “had been talking about a freshman caucus that night…[and left] ‘to have some fun’.” Ernest noted that Willis was wearing older clothes and shoes, and that he left his watch and chain on the table with his books “as if he were afraid he would get them lost or broken.” Ernest noted that Willis took nothing else with him—only pocket change at the most. Willis had $50 of savings—a sizable sum in 1908-- that he had left in Ernest’s care. Ernest felt that if Willis had intended to run off, he would have made sure to take that money with him.

Willis never returned to Mrs. Beauchamp’s. An increasingly concerned Ernest contacted his Kentucky siblings to see if Willis was at any of their homes. He contacted university officials, and he reported Willis’ disappearance to the Lexington police. The case was covered thoroughly in the press. Despite the publicity, no one came forward to say they had seen or spoken to Willis. Willis didn’t reach out to family members. There were no reports of vagrants or bodies or injured men in surrounding areas. Where had Willis gone?

On September 29, the eldest Smith brother, Frampton, arrived in Lexington. He and Ernest spent a considerable time talking to the police detectives to no avail. The next week, Ernest told the press that his father was “a highly educated man, and it has been the greatest ambition of all of his sons to secure an education…” He also said that Willis was “much pleased with college life and his prospects, …and expressed no dissatisfaction with any feature of his surroundings.” Landlady Beauchamp gave “the strongest testimony of the boy’s good habits [and] high character…” It seems as if the family feared the university and police would try to blame Willis’ disappearance on his inability to succeed at college or his falling victim to drugs or alcohol.

Willis’ father, Rev. Willis Smith, was contacted in New Mexico, where he was homesteading and founding churches with his second wife and Willis’ younger siblings. He was as puzzled and worried as his other sons.

By October, the interest in the mystery was at a fever pitch. The Louisville Courier-Journal even published a picture of Rev. Smith and family at their New Mexico homestead, noting that they were “grief-stricken…and unable to offer any solution…” 

Another article called on the Kentucky Governor to offer a reward for information. Apparently, there were rumors that Willis had fallen afoul of upperclassmen who were hazing freshmen, and that he had been accidently killed, which whipped up anti-student sentiment in Lexington. University officials were growing increasingly nervous.

Hope was stirred in November 1908 when the sheriff in Russellville, Kentucky reported that a young man had come to their community who matched Willis’ general description. The man told the sheriff his name was “Harry Smith”, and that he had left the university some weeks before. Ernest was dubious that the man was Willis, and he was correct. Five days later, the Smith family hired a Pinkerton detective to look into Willis’ disappearance. The news article stated, “The members of the Smith family are convinced that the mystery has been by no means thoroughly investigated by either the state college officials or the grand jury…”

By December, Ernest was frustrated and despairing. He told the press, “I am settled in the opinion that my brother was killed---accidentally killed…Although I have been forced to abandon hope of again seeing him alive, I entertain the hope of finding his body. There has not a day passed that I have not done something in the search…I regret anything which couples the name of the University with this distressing affair. I have always contended that if the theory that fellow students had accidentally killed Willis were proved, no stigma should reflect on the institution. If students did it, only a few, acting entirely independently of the mass, and seeking fun instead of hurt to him, were involved.”

Ernest also told the reporter that his father thought Willis might have enlisted in the Army, but Army records were checked and he was not found.

The Smith family probably spent a miserable Christmas mourning Willis, but just days later he suddenly appeared at his sister’s house in Lexington telling a wild tale. He claimed he was attacked by four men who chloroformed him and took him by freight car to northern Wisconsin where he was held captive in a cave. His captors hoped for a reward for his return. He claimed to have escaped and returned home as soon as he could.

This story was met with immediate ridicule. Observers noted that he was very sun-tanned—hardly the complexion of a man who spent 3 months in a cave. In addition, his hands were calloused from heavy labor, despite his claims that his captors didn’t make him do any work.

When Ernest was able to finally speak with Willis in person, he forced Willis to confess the truth: that he had fled the university, traveling on freight cars to northern Wisconsin where he obtained work in a logging camp. After a couple months there, he went south to Bloomington, Illinois and worked in a restaurant. “Time and again…he endeavored to write home, but he never could get up the courage.”

Why did Willis run away? His excuse also sounds like a total fabrication. He claimed that a fraternity at the University wanted to initiate him, and he didn’t want to join. They insisted that he must join or leave the school. He felt threatened and chose to leave.

I suspect there was a lot more going on in this young man’s life. Perhaps he was struggling in his classes. Perhaps he didn’t really want to go to college, but was pushed into it by his father and older brothers. Perhaps he just panicked, unable to face the future his family expected of him. Perhaps he had mental health issues.

The press and public opinion was scathing. Ernest hustled Willis off to their hometown of Owensboro, making the following statement to the Lexington Leader:

“My brother is as sound in mind as I am, and there is nothing the matter with him now. I am going to take him back to Owensboro tonight and find hm something to do there. I am not going to bring him back to Lexington at this time, if he ever comes at all, because I do not think it would be wise just now. He will not go to college, I am sure of that, and it would do no good to take him back there. I am going to find him some work to do at Owensboro and leave him there. I will return to Lexington tomorrow.”

And that is exactly what Ernest did. He took Willis home and moved him into their married sister’s house, while Ernest returned to the university and completed his degree and then started medical school.

Willis appears on the 1910 census in the household of William Hubbard, his sister Nannie’s husband. He is unemployed at that point. Just three years later, Willis married a young Owensboro woman, Sybil Erwin, on October 2, 1913. He was twenty-five and Sybil was just eighteen.

By the time World War I broke out, Willis and Sybil were living in Dayton, Ohio. He was thirty years old, and was working as a cement finisher. But two short years later, he and Sybil had a baby daughter, Dorothy June Smith, and they had moved to Allen County, Ohio to the town of Auglaize. He had changed professions, and he was working as a Methodist minister. I assume that somewhere along the way, Willis managed to complete college or at least attend seminary. I have been unable to find a record of what institution he attended after his abortive semester at the University of Kentucky.

After his panicked disappearance, Willis E. Smith put his life together, and became a respected member of the community and the Methodist Church. Rev. Smith had a long, productive career as a Methodist minister, serving many years in parishes in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Perhaps, like many young people, he needed to get out into the world before he could realize what he wanted and needed to do with his life long-term.

 

Sources:

Mr. Willis Smith to enter college. Owensboro Messenger Inquirer. Owensboro, KY. Aug, 1908. Newspapers.com.

“Brothers Look for Missing Freshman”.  Lexington Herald.  Lexington, KY. Sep. 29, 1908. Newspapers.com.

“Governor Willson Asked to Offer a Reward for Smith.” Lexington Herald.  Lexington, KY. Oct. 20, 1908. Newspapers.com.

“Smith Family Give Up Hope”. Louisville Courier. Louisville KY. Oct 5, 1908. Newspapers.com.

“Pinkerton Employed in Disappearance of Willis Smith”. Owensboro Twice-a-Week Messenger. Owensboro, KY. Nov. 7, 1908. Newspapers.com.

“Letters Point to Sewer Ditch as His Grave” Lexington Leader. Lexington, KY. Dec 28, 1908. Newspapers.com.

“Willis Smith Turns Up at Sister’s”. Lexington Leader. Lexington, KY. Dec 31, 1908. Newspapers.com.

“Missing College Student Turns Up at Owensboro”. Louisville Courier. Louisville KY. Dec. 31, 1908. Newspapers.com.

“Comments on Willis E Smith.” Lexington Herald.  Lexington, KY. Jan 2, 1909. Newspapers.com.

“Why Smith Left Home”. Lexington Leader. Lexington, KY. Jan 3, 1909. Newspapers.com.