Many years ago when I first received the box of photos, bibles and papers from my Mom which belonged to Everett and Lillian Smith, I found many interesting things that they had saved thru the years. This was one of the first items I found. It was a Valentine sent to Lillian from Everett. She received it eleven days before her nineteen birthday.

Lillian had lived most of her life in Flint with her Grandmother, Mary Florence. Lillian’s Mother died when Lillian was just short of nine years old. On a sunny but cold February morning, Mae Losee, hauled a basket of wet laundry to the clothes line with the intention of hanging them out to dry. After some time, Lillian realized that her Mother had not returned to the house so she went to investigate. Lillian found Mae slumped over the basket of wet clothes. She had died. On that day in 1914, her whole life changed in an instant.

Lillian and her younger siblings left Clio, Michigan to live with Mae’s mother, Mary Florence in her boarding house in Flint. Five years earlier, Mary Florence had lost her husband when he suddenly died. She left their thriving florist business in Clio to her daughter, Mae and her husband, George Losee, to run and bought a large house in Flint where she would run a boarding house. With no husband to support her, fifty-four year old Mary Florence would have to find a way to support herself. In 1914, the automotive industry was just getting a stronghold in the Flint Business Community. Mary Florence hoped that these workers would need housing, Her business flourished and she rarely had an empty room. A short five years later she gathered her daughter’s young children and brought them to the boarding house too. Lillian’s older brother Lester, who was eleven, remained with his father on the farm and lent a hand in the fields and in the florist shop.

Everett, meanwhile, was living in rural Wells County, Indiana with his parents, Alvin and Cora Smith and his younger brother, James Frederick. Alvin worked for a Dairy distributing milk to customers and local grocery stores with a small delivery wagon. Sometime around 1918, Alvin and Cora made the decision to move to Michigan. With the Auto Industry growing at a rapid rate, there were many new job opportunities. They decided as a family to go to Flint to see if Alvin could secure employment in one of the new factories. They pack up all their belonging including Alvin’s wagon and their single cow on a rail car and headed north.

Cora and Everett heading north driving an automobile while Alvin and James Fredrick made their way north in the rail car with all the family belongings. The wagon and the cow were brought as an insurance policy just in case Alvin could not immediately secure employment. Alvin stated to his wife, “In case this automotive stuff does not pan out !” Well, needless to say, it did pan out, Alvin got a job and so did his brother who came a few weeks later. They bought a single “lot’ on Term Street in Burton and built one house by 1920 and by 1922 they purchased a second lot and built another house. These Smith Families who were just getting by in Indiana were now prospering in Flint.

Some time in the fall of 1922, in the town of Burton, a local church held a Tent Revival Meeting which brought young people from all over Flint to Burton. Seventeen year old Lillian, her Sunday School class and her best friend, Bessie Calkins, were so excited to go.

Nineteen year old, Everett, and his fifteen year old brother, James Fredrick decided to go too. They were the “new kids on the block” and what better way to meet new friends? Being their Granddaughter and not knowing them as teenagers, it is hard for me to think of either of them as “boy crazy” or “girl crazy” but it is highly likely that was the common draw for each of them to attend the event that day. And they were indeed on a collision course to meet.

After that day and in the months that followed, they used every church event that they could to be together. Mary Florence felt it was safe for Lillian to see Everett if it was at a church event. It became obvious that Everett and Lillian were becoming a bit more than friends. Eventually Mary Florence, allowed Everett to come around to see Lillian more and more.

On Lillian’s nineteen birthday, February 25, 1923, her best friend Bessie Caulkins hosted a Birthday party for her and it turned into an engagement party when Everett proposed. It maybe that Bessie knew that Everett would proposed, I don’t know that .

They were married on August 28, 1923 by Joel B. Gass. Their love endured 55 years until Everett died in 1978.

Happy Hunting,

Jan