Lela Sullivan Smith

Love of learning led her off farm

— Most people living along rural Big Creek in Shannon County, Mo., in the 1920s had only an eighth-grade education, but Lela Sullivan Smith had bigger dreams.

“She asked her father if she could go to high school ... He said, ‘Make something of yourself,’ so she did and moved” in with relatives about 15 miles away, said her son, Bill Smith. “She just said she really liked books, liked studying and wanted to learn.”

Smith died Wednesday at Chambers Nursing Home Center in Carlisle from an unknown cause, her sons said.

She was 101.

Born Oct. 28, 1910, at a farmhouse in Missouri, Smith was the second oldest of six children.

“Up in that area they have natural springs; that’s where they’d get the water,” Bill Smith said. “There was no electricity ... they buried apples in the ground below the frost line and dug them up in the winter time [to eat].”

As a child, Smith enjoyed riding on horseback throughout the countryside to visit relatives.

“I said, ‘Are you sure you knew the way all the time?’” Bill Smith said. “[She said], ‘I told my parents I knew the way, but I wasn’t too sure. The horse knew the way.’”

The family often traveled in a wagon pulled by horses.

“When she was about four years old, she fell off the wagon and the wagon ran over her arm and side. It hurt her pretty bad,” Bill Smith said. “Her mother picked her up and carried her until they got to their relatives’ [house] about seven to eight miles away ... She still had a scar.”

In high school, she met her future husband, W.L. Smith, who was a teacher.

“She said she walked up to the school and he was standing out in front and welcoming the students, and he said, ‘Welcome Miss Sullivan,” Bill Smith said. “She said she’d never been called that before.”

The couple married and she graduated in the late 1920s. While her husband taught in various small Missouri towns, she tended to the house and their two sons. Smith enjoyed fun game nights with her family, but also knew when to lay down the law.

“She was fairly strict,” said her son, Kenneth Smith.“If she wanted to give us a [whipping], she made us go out and get our own switch and bring it back.”

In order to afford sending their oldest son to college, her husband became a math professor at Arkansas State College in Jonesboro in 1946.

But she wasn’t excited about leaving the “big city” of Mexico, Mo., which had about 10,000 people, Kenneth Smith said of his mother.

“While driving down to Jonesboro, she said she didn’t like it down here because the sky was too low,” Kenneth Smith said. “Once she got over the sky being too low, she really liked it a lot.”

In her late 30s, Smith took college courses.

“She was always curious and wanting to learn things, and this was a good opportunity to do it,” Kenneth Smith said.

For 62 years, Smith enjoyed being a part of the Jonesboro community and watching Red Wolves football and basketball games.

“When Arkansas State played the University of Arkansas in basketball and it got down to the last point, the University of Arkansas had the advantage. As you would expect they had lots of players, running them in and out,” Kenneth Smith said. “Arkansas State players played the whole game.

“She attributed that to the one-point loss ... she strongly resented that.”

Even at 101 years old, Smith made sure her 76- and 80-year-old sons knew who was still in charge.

“[She said], ‘Always mind your Mama,” Kenneth Smith said. “When I got old like I am now, she still expected me to mind my Mama.”

Arkansas, Pages 14 on 10/13/2012

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