My father was Harold Smith. He was born on August 29, 1928.  He was the son of Everett and Lillian (Losee) Smith. Everett was a Methodist Minister  who was ordained in 1932 when Harold was three years old. They moved frequently as many ministers did. Everett’s first church was in Flint, Michigan. His second church was in Genesee, Michigan and at that time he also covered the Richfield Center Church too. His third church was eighty miles east southeast of Genesee in Marine City, Michigan. After Marine City, they would go to Lapeer where Everett would complete his work in the old downtown church and then retiring from Trinity Methodist after it was built.

Harold moved frequently as a child and with each move came new schools and friends. Making friends came easy for Harold. He was a joker, a prankster and always ready for a good laugh sometimes at your expense but just as often at his own expense. He was very involved with his schools and his churches.

When they moved to Marine City in 1943, Harold was fourteen and beginning High School. He became interested in sports.  He played football in the 1943-1947 seasons and ran on the track team for the same years.

In 1945 season for track, he ran barefoot. I am sure that his mother was mortified because she always told us a story about how she cut her foot badly on a tin can and that we should never go barefoot….

He had a large circle of friends from church and school. This picture is of him and his friends at the cottage at Skinner Lake near Lapeer.

He met his future wife, Leah Anderson, when they lived in Marine City.  Not only did they go to school together but they attended the same church.

As a young adult he went to St. Clair Community collage for his Associates Degree and later to Mott Community College in Flint to get his Bachelors degree. While going to college, he worked for JC Penney’s in Lapeer.  It became really obvious that retail was the perfect line of work for him. He loved people and he connected with everyone at every age.

After graduation, Harold first went to work for Egleston’s in Lapeer and before too long he moved to the store in Romeo. We moved to Romeo shortly after I was born in August of 1955. Bill Mitzelfeld married Diana, one of the Egleston daughters and worked in the family business for a time before deciding to open his own store, Mitzelfeld’s in Rochester.  Harold decided to follow Bill to the new store.

While living in Romeo, Harold was very active in the Romeo United Methodist Church where he had many wonderful friends. Our childhood was full of church events every week. Often the fathers took the older children to the church activities while the Moms stayed home with the younger kids in the family.  Dad became good friends with all of the men at our church who were actively involved in their older children’s activities. Through the years we went on camping trips, canoe trips, hayrides, to Fisher Theater to see the release of the movie “The Ten Commandments” and Sunday afternoons trips to the pool at Oakland University. Most of these events were planned by and coordinated  by my father and his friends at the Romeo United Methodist church.

In 1971, Bill Knight, a close family friend, decided to retire, and Harold bought the Ben Franklin store in Imlay City. We had move to Imlay City in 1968.  He was active in Rotary, Imlay City Chamber of Commerce and the Imlay City United Methodist church. In all of these organizations he was a very active member. It was obvious that he was really in his element.

In the Imlay City store, he had a well stocked bulk candy counter and a peanut/nut roaster. My father LOVED Spanish peanuts! When he fired up the nut roaster, the people would flock into the store. When the weather was good he would throw open the doors and the roasted nut aroma would flood into the streets of downtown Imlay City.

Through the years there were several articles written in the local newspapers about  him and the type of character he was. The Lapeer County Press once featured him in their “Good Guy” column. In the article, a customer called the newspaper to nominate him for the Good Guy reward after he help her daughter out. Her daughter had saved her own money to buy a pair a shoes. She bought them and after a short period of time one of the shoes developed a hole.  So they brought the shoes back to Harold. He took one look at that shoe and retrieved another pair of shoes for her in her size. He told the little girl to keep the other shoes and use them for play.

In the 1975, he bought the Ben Franklin in Harbor Beach and ran both stores for a time. Once all of his children had completed high school in Imlay City, Harold and Leah closed the  Imlay City store and moved permanently up to Harbor Beach in 1980. His plans was to semi- retire but he jumped into the community and his days looked nothing like retirement.

For the next sixteen years Harold and Leah actively ran the Harbor Beach Dime store. As the article states, Harold had a great bunch of employees, one of whom was my older sister, Pam. He always carried fabric and sewing notions for me! (and all of his other customers) He had encouraged me when I was eight years old to learn to sew. “If you learn to sew, I promise I’ll always have fabric for you! “, he told a crying eight year old after he had to tell me that he could not afford to buy me the Easter dress I wanted.  It was not in his budget.  I did learn to sew and so did my sisters.  He kept his promise. He always carried fabric and notions for us until the day he died.  He expanded his business to offer framing services that would help draw business in the winter months.  Since Harbor Beach was a bit of a tourist town with lots of extra summer visitors,  he always had souvenirs, tee shirts, sweatshirts, and sunglasses. No one could predict when the wind would shifted, turning cold off the lake or the sun would be blazing and you needed to keep it out of your eyes but he was bound and determined to have you covered no matter what.

The last line of the article is rather poignant. My father died suddenly on the morning of August 30, 1996 in my parent’s apartment in the back of the Harbor Beach Store. He was taken out of the store on a stretcher that day for the last time.

A few days later, the church as packed for his funeral with all his friends. I was, at that time, not very comfortable speaking in front of a crowd of people but that day I did, thru my tears. I told the crowd that I had been asking myself, WHY? Why couldn’t he get a second chance? Why don’t I get to talk to him again? Doesn’t MY father deserve a second chance at life. My husband was a paramedic in out town of Fox River Grove, Illinois. He had revived many people who had suffered a heart attack. The medical community had made many strides so why had my father not benefited from all these advancements. After several days of contemplation, I decided that God did not need to give him a second chance, because he lived his life right the first time. He was a friend to all.

So he was indeed the most popular man I have ever known.

Love you and miss you, Dad!

Jan

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