A Godly Profession: 52 Ancestors 2026 Prompt “A Family Pattern”

 
Five of Willis Smith’s Sons Follow Him Into a Life of Faith and Service

Willis Smith: 1853-1928 (Maternal Great-Grandfather)
Albert Elias Smith: 1876-1930 (Maternal Granduncle)
Lucius Ernest Smith: 1878-1955 (Maternal Granduncle)
Willis Eugene Smith: 1888-1973 (Maternal Granduncle)
Eldred Paschal Smith: 1892-1955 (Maternal Granduncle)
James Frampton Smith: 1875-1916  (Maternal Granduncle)

 

My husband’s great-grandfather, Rev. Willis Smith, entered the ministry at a young age. He led churches in Kentucky, and did missionary work, founding churches in the Oklahoma Territory, New Mexico and Texas, before heading back to Kentucky as a minister in Owensboro and Dawson Springs.

Willis Smith had six sons with his first wife, Margaret Underwood Benton. Of those six sons, three followed him into the ministry, one became a missionary doctor, and one other was the head of the Sunday School in his home church. Building lives around faith was obviously a family pattern for the Smiths.

Albert Elias Smith was the first of Willis Smith’s sons to follow him into the ministry. Albert was born October 12, 1876. He married Othilde “Tillie” Haurin on August 25, 1903 in Los Angeles, California. The marriage write-up in the newspaper said he planned to attend the seminary after a long honeymoon. It is unclear what he was doing in California or how and where he and Tillie met. Just three years earlier, he was living with his father, stepmother and siblings in Asheville, North Carolina, and he was listed as “in school”. The Lexington Herald reported later that year that he graduated from Kentucky State College with a Bachelor of Science degree.

Albert Elias Smith

Albert was working as a professor at the Women’s Christian Temperence Union’s Settlement School in Hindman, Kentucky by 1908. He left that position at some point before 1912, when a news item reported he was working as a minister in the town of Hazard. By the 1920 census, he had no occupation, so was probably between churches at that time, By the 1930 census he was serving as a Presbyterian minister in the small town of Masons Creek, Kentucky. He died from injuries sustained in a fire on his property on September 24, 1930.

Hazard Herald, Sept. 26, 1912.

Interestingly, Albert’s son Harvey Murdoch Smith also chose a career in the ministry, working as a Presbyterian minister in New York state.

Albert’s brother Willis Eugene Smith was born January 22, 1888. He dropped out of college after disappearing for months during his freshman year. He returned home to Owensboro, living with one of his sisters and her husband. While there, he met his future wife, Sybil Erwin. The couple married on October 2, 1913. Willis did not immediately choose a career in the ministry. When he registered for the World War I draft in 1917, he was working as a cement finisher in Dayton, Ohio. He was inducted into the military in 1918 as part of the Student Army Training Corps, and was sent to Vanderbilt University to be trained as an accountant.

By the date of the 1920 census, he was employed as a Methodist minister in a small Ohio town. He continued serving as a minister for various Congregational churches in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and eventually California where his daughter worked as a movie and television actress. Willis died in 1973 at the age of eighty-five.

Rev. Willis Eugene Smith

The third son who entered the ministry was Eldred Paschal Smith. Like his brothers, his route to the ministry was not direct. Eldred was born January 14, 1892. He married Nina Roberts on September 23, 1917, with their first son, Robert Cecil, born just a month later. (there are conflicts in the records, showing that they didn’t marry until their son was nearly 2 years old.) In the 1920s, Eldred was working with cars, receiving a patent in 1922 for a “demountable split rim”, which I believe was a type of car wheel. 

Article on Eldred's patent--Owensboro Messenger 1922

He was working as a chauffeur in the 1920 census, and owned the Pike County Auto Company with his brother Charles. The business went under in 1924.

Eldred and Charles' Smith's car business sold in bankruptcy--1924

Eldred decided to make a career change after that, attending Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Texas. He became a Presbyterian minister, serving in churches in Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas. In the 1940s he took a position with the Leupp Presbyterian Navajo Indian Mission in Arizona, where he remained as the minister until his death in 1955.

Rev. Willis Smith and wife Cora with Eldred Smith and wife Nina.

Willis Smith’s two other sons with strong church ties were James Frampton Smith and Lucius Ernest Smith. James Frampton was Willis’ eldest child. He was born January 18, 1875 and married Alice Thornsberry in 1898. He worked as a blacksmith and at various other jobs before his early death from pneumonia in January 1916. He had served his Methodist church in Owensboro as the Sunday School superintendent for many years, and the tributes after his death spoke of his faith and hard work for his church.

James Frampton Smith and wife Alice, 1914

Lucius Ernest Smith worked for several years trying to homestead a farm in Oklahoma, and then worked with his minister brother, Albert Elias, at the mission school in the Appalachians. Perhaps inspired by the illnesses he saw mountain people face, he enrolled in college at around age thirty, and following his graduation at age 33, he entered medical school. He became a missionary doctor for the Presbyterian Church, serving at a medical mission in Spanish Guinea in Africa. 

When he returned to the United States, he worked for the Presbyterian Church before using his medical training as the executive secretary of the Kentucky Tuberculosis Association.

Ernest's business card during years as doctor in Africa

Reverend Willis Smith obviously inspired his sons with his faith and service as a minister. He led them to dedicate their lives to their faith, with five of the six sons serving in various capacities, from medical missionary to minister, and in various branches of the Protestant church, from Methodist to Congregationalist to Presbyterian churches. Living their faith was a Smith family pattern.

Sources:

Bankruptcy Notice: Paintsville Herald. Paintsville, KY. 1924. Newspapers.com.

Eldred Smith Patent. Owensboro Messenger. Owensboro, KY. 1922. Newspapers.com

Albert E Smith to preach. Hazard Herald. Hazard, KY. September 26, 1912. Newspapers.com

Family photos.