On
March 12, 1915, Robert Ernest “Poss” Smith was born to John Robert and Mattie
Mae {Ernest} Smith. He was the third of eight children and the second of three
sons.
When
he was born, the family lived in the Bluefield, Virginia, area where his father
was a locomotive Engineer for Norfolk and Western Railroad. While he was still
a small child, the family moved to Richlands, Virginia, and settled in an area
of town known as Dalton Addition. The family first lived in a 2-story
wooden framed house typical of the era. As the children grew and extended
family began to visit more frequently, his parents built a new, larger brick
home on their property.
Poss
was an adventurous child, and would often go off on his own to explore and
amuse himself. His sisters told stories later in life of how adept he was at
disappearing on the walk to church on Sundays, coming home hours later with
stained clothing and a sheepish grin. He was given the nickname “Possum”, later
shortened to Poss, at an early age, an apparent reference to his tendency to
sneak off on his own. Poss was very much his mothers son, in part attributed to his father’s line of work. Being a train engineer was a time consuming
profession and it had fallen upon Mattie to shoulder the bulk of the
instruction and discipline of the children. From all accounts he had a happy
childhood, and excelled in his studies in school.
Poss
had aspirations of becoming a teacher of history, a dream that did not find
favor with his father John and a series of defining events in his life began to
unfold. John would not willingly finance a college education for the boy, who
graduated from Richlands High School in 1931, about 3 months after his
sixteenth birthday. A compromise was struck and he attained a 2 year
certificate from a business college. He declined to go to work for Norfolk and
Western and follow in his fathers footsteps, opting instead to try his hand at
coal mining.
As
he grew older he developed an appetite for alcohol that would play a
destructive role in his life over years, the physical affects would eventually
contribute to life altering ailments. He married a woman who was slightly older
than he, Evelyn Stallard from Wise County, Virginia, and they quickly had
fraternal twins, Larry and Gary. His inlaws were farmers, owning good sized
apple orchards. Evelyn soon made apparent her desire that they live on her
parents’ property and expected Poss to work for her father and with her brother
in the orchards. He was not keen on this, and the couple fought bitterly.
Evelyn moved back to her parents’ home when the children were very small, and
Poss spent the next years rambling about the world.
I
am unsure as to what he did when, but know the general idea of those years. His
sister Fay and her husband Farris settled in Florida, and he spent no small
amount of time there. He told me once that he had a job at one point that
entailed going out into the ocean off the coast in the Cape Canaveral area and retrieving
the experimental rockets that were being tested by the precursor to NASA. I
have no doubt he worked hard at whatever he did, and played hard as well.
He
spent no small amount of time in the Merchant Marines, and was aboard merchant
ships during WWII. He used to tell us about the various ports he had visited,
and of being on at least one vessel that took enemy fire from German submarines
while transporting supplies to Allied forces and crossing the Black Sea. He had
been ashore in France, England, Turkey, and Egypt and sailed around the horn of
Africa. He spoke of Paris, Cairo, Ankara and other cities. He sailed out of New
York and New Jersey most frequently. He was recruited to attend officers’
school while in the Merchant Marines but declined. He had a few scars from
minor mishaps and suffered from the effects of malaria for as long as I could
remember, having tremors and sweats for which he was prescribed medicine. When
he would return from a voyage, he would send part of his pay to his mother,
part of it for the support of his sons, and he would drink and carouse until he
was broke with the remainder. From time to time he would find himself on a
train headed to Virginia, where his mother would lovingly nurse him back to
health.
He
developed bleeding stomach ulcers as a result of his lifestyle and was ‘home’
to get healthy when he and my mother met.
My
father was the best read man I have ever known. There were few subjects he
could not converse about with no authority.
He was in his forties when my
sister and I, and our younger brother, were born. He had developed diabetes by the
time he was 50, and suffered from congestive heart failure. He spent the last
years of his working life as a salesman and warehouse foreman for a wholesale
grocer in our town. He gardened well, growing an amazing volume and variety of
food.
My
father was sarcastic, and had an extremely jaded view of mankind. He was kind
and lenient with his three youngest children and a loving grandfather in his
later years. He thought of those he loved first, always. He had close friends
he talked and visited with often. He loved cherry pie, apple pie, Boston cream
pie and pound cake. He had a weakness for Reese’s cups and Kit Kat bars. He
drank hot tea with milk and sweetener with his evening meal and always had
fruit and cottage cheese as well.
When
we were small we climbed over under and on him as if he were a jungle gym. I
cannot count the times my mother punished me as a child, yet remember with
shame the times he did so.
I
am a spoiled woman today because he spoiled me as a child, and my sister will
tell you the same.
I
could, and one day may, write a book about him. Even then there would be much
untold.
He
passed away less than a month after his 71st birthday in 1986. I can
still hear his voice in my dreams, and would like nothing more than to be able
to make him lunch one more time. Grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato soup and
Lane cake for dessert. I think he would be pleased.
I
love you, Daddy.
