More Infamous Kin
My aunt received a copy of this newspaper clipping about our great-grandfather, “Smokey Bill” Smith, from his niece who still lives in Harrisburg, near Harco. I am delighted that the local newspaper thought this item amusing enough to reprint it in a “75 Years Ago…” column! I wonder if they knew his relatives would see it, or if they just thought a chicken thief named “Smokey Bill” was too funny to be someone’s ancestor. Then again, it’s a pretty small town, and maybe the newspaper staff know my family all too well.
James William “Will” Webster Smith, aka “Smokey Bill,” was born Sept 10, 1890 in Providence, Webster county, Kentucky. He married Verla Leona Doss and had 9 children, 7 of whom lived to adulthood, including my grandmother, Mary Mildred Smith. His youngest daughter Barbara is the only one living currently. The family lived in Harco and several other coal towns in Saline county Illinois and Clay county Kentucky. Smokey Bill died in Harrisburg, Illinois in June 1970.
Below is a picture of great-Grandpa Smith (right) and a man identified on the back as Clarence Johnson. The photo postcard was probably taken between 1910 and 1920.
I always thought that, while handsome, Smokey Bill looked like a troublemaker or black sheep of some type in this photo — but I imagined it to be the slightly more glamorous life of a Shawneetown gangster, ladies man, gambler, or since he was born in the hills of Kentucky, maybe a moonshiner. But apparently his was the ignominious career of Chicken Thief. Below is some more detail from my aunt about her grandfather:
“[Cousin] Johnny confirmed that Grandpa Smith was an accomplished chicken thief. In fact, she said that Grandpa and a sister of Grandma’s (don’t know which one – must have occurred in Kentucky where the sisters lived) could go into a chicken house and steal chickens without any of them making a peep. I asked Bob about this and he told me there is a real knack to stealthily grabbing a chicken and putting it down into a bag without making it or the others erupt in loud clucks and squawks.
“By the way, in November of 1934 Grandpa was 44 – old enough to know better. But the thirties were tough times. Aunt Barbara was only two years old, Betty, five, Mildred, seven, Todge, nine, Toots, fourteen, Lou, seventeen, and J. G, twenty-one. I’ll bet J.G. was away in the Army. I have a feeling there are a lot of things about Smokey Bill we’ll never know. Cool things, like this
.”
I absolutely love my family!