The Smith Papers Collection

Contents: History of the Project | Content Notes of the Smith Family Papers Collection | Major players in the collection | Tech

History of the Project:

This project began in August of 2019, with the first students in LIB 201: Intro to Digital Research. These students paved the way for others to learn about, interact, and access the letters in this collection by creating transcripts, metadata, and digital scans of the contents in the Ellard-Murphree-Pilgreen-Smith Collection (from here on, referred to as the “Smith Family Papers”).

Content Notes of the Smith Family Papers Collection

The majority of the contents of the Ellard-Murphree-Pilgreen-Smith Collection (referred to from here on out as the “Smith Family Papers”) includes letters, diaries, financial and academic records, wills, birth records. among family members and friends, with most letters from members of the Smith Family–Pauline and Sam H. and their children, Bernice, Christine, Martha, and Sam E (or “Sonny Boy.”). The geographic center of the collection is Pittsboro (or Calhoun County) Mississippi, where the family maintained their home since 1914, and where Pauline wrote most of her letters. Several letters from Jackson, MS are from Sam H. Smith, who was a state senator between 1932 and 1936. Letters to and from Columbus, MS are from Bernice, Christine and Martha, who each attended and graduated from the Mississippi State College for Women between 1931 and 1938. As Pauline and Sam H. grow older and continue to write from Mississippi, the children move around the country, and with a few military appointments, around the world. The letters reflect this.

Major players in the collection

(Biographical notes supplied by Bridget and Steve Pieschel and edited by Hillary Richardson)

Edith Pauline Ellard Smith, or “Pauline” (1894-1977) - homemaker and mother of 4. Pauline wrote letters constantly and kept a daily diary chronicling rural life before electricity, subsistence gardening, and the lives of all her neighbors and extended families, through the Great Depression, World War II, and the Civil Rights and Equal Rights movements. She spent 27 years as a widow and as the center of life for her children and grandchildren.

Samuel Hawkins Smith, or “Daddy” (1880-1950) - He had essentially a fifth grade education. He began his working life as a brick maker and brick layer, but wanted a more intellectual life. He started as a newspaper columnist for a newspaper run by his future wife’s Murphree cousins in Pittsboro. He was Sheriff of Calhoun County in the 1920s and Mississippi State Senator between 1932-1936, running on a prohibitionist ticket. He was a white supremecist of his time, although he considered Vardaman and Bilbo crude, he supported both of them politically. He was considered a more moderate racist of his time–he thought the role of white people should be as benevolent guardians of the African-Americans, and he supported a segregated society. However, he supported “separate but equal” education for African-Americans, which was not supported by more radical white supremecists. In his last run for State Senator in the late 1940’s, he lost the election to a more radical racist. He died in 1950, and probably would not have changed his ideas about race if he had lived. His wife and daughters, though, came to support the Civil Rights Movement.

Annie Bernice Smith, or “Bernice” (1914-2001) - graduated from MSCW in 1935, supported herself with clerical work in Miami and Memphis after a brief time as a school teacher. After retirement, she devoted herself to promoting the Equal Rights Amendment as an officer in the Memphis Chapter of the National Organization for Women, and exploring Murphree Family Genealogy. She died in Pittsboro in the Smith Family Home.

Edith Christine Smith Faust, or “Chris” (1916-1970) - graduated from MSCW in 1937 with a degree in English, supported herself in a variety of jobs in Miami, Mississippi, and Memphis. She married Elwood (“Woody”) Faust in 1944. As a military spouse, she traveled the world with Woody until cancer cut her life short in 1970.

Martha Josephine Smith Womble (1917-2005) - graduated from MSCW in 1938 with a degree in Home Economics and worked as a teacher in McComb, then a nutritionist in Memphis and Baton Rouge. She married James Womble in 1950 and made a home with him and her daughter Rachel in Clearwater, FL.

Sam Ellard Smith, or “Sonny Boy” (1924-2007) - enlisted in the army during World War II, and served in the liberation of France after D Day, and in the Battle of the Bulge (1944) and the invasion of Germany (1945). Following military service, he graduated from Mississippi A&M College in 1950 with a degree in Engineering and married Nadine Capwell of Pittsboro in 1956. He and Nadine had three children: Bridget, Sam, Jr., and Susan. They lived in Louisville, MS where he worked as a consulting engineer, designing small community water systems and surveying land.