Alfred Virgil Smith
(March 4, 1868 - March 11, 1912)
Alfred Virgil Smith was born March 4, 1868 in Alabama to Lee
Jasper Smith and Mary Jane Milstead. His father moved to Rusk County, Texas in
1866 when Alfred was 9 years old. The family lived on a farm on RR 2 out of
Henderson.
Alfred married Sarah Adaline (Addie) Roach July 15, 1888. She was born near Birmingham,
Alabama on March 19, 1873 and died in Mangum, Oklahoma March 31, 1952.
See Roach Family History for further details on her
family.
Alfred Smith and Sarah Roach had the following children:
The Smith family lived on a farm near Henderson, Texas. Their neighbors were
the Louis Cemore Thompson family. During 1908, the Thompson family and the
Smith family moved to Greer County, Oklahoma hoping to find homesteads. By
the time they arrived, all of the homesteads had been taken, so they rented
farms and engaged in farming until they were able to buy farms of their own.
Alfred Smith died March 11, 1911 from colon cancer. Two of his sons, Claude
and Dewey, and two of his grandsons died of the same disease. Another
grandson (me, Charles H. Smith) had colon cancer but it was caught before it
spread. The heritary condition causing this is called Familial Polyposis. It
appears to have started with the union of Lee J. Smith and Mary Jane Milstead.
After that time, it only affected male descendants and while my father, Sam
Houston Smith died of a stroke, he passed the condion on to me. My sons
appear to have been spared.
After Alfred's death, the Smith family moved into Mangum, the county seat of
Mangum.
Sarah Addie Roach was the youngest of nine children. She
married Alfred Smith when she was 14. She was blind most of her adult
life as the result of errant cataract surgery. She enjoyed gardening,
homemaking and raising canaries. She died at the age of 79 from a stroke.
Source(s): Sam Houston Smith, Allie Mae Smith, Barbara Knox, Myrtle Lee
Smith Carpenter