Born on the 4th of July, 1883, to Mary Emilia Brower and Ezekiel Smith, 'Clint' — as he was more commonly known — was born in Mendocino County, California. The third, and middle, of five children, Clint's siblings included older brother Harry and sister Clara, followed by John and Lola.
The Brower and Smith families were early settlers of Potter Valley, a small community about 18 miles north of Ukiah. Racehorse Seabiscuit has the distinction of being Potter Valley's most famous {part-time} resident.
His maternal grandfather, John Daniel Brower, was a 49er, having journeyed by sail around Cape Horn and arriving in San Francisco in August of 1849. His paternal grandmother, Sarah Smith, left all that was familiar in Missouri and traveled overland to California in 1857, following several of her children.
Clint's early years were spent in Potter Valley, in typical Western fashion... farming, stock raising and attending a one-room schoolhouse. In 1899, at the age of 16, his life took a turn towards the unexpected. His mother, Mary, left her husband, uprooted her children, and moved to Honolulu where the family was enumerated at the time of the 1900 census.1
Her reasons for leaving aren't entirely clear, but clear enough to her husband who sought a divorce based on desertion shortly thereafter. The Smith family only spent a couple of years in Hawaii, but family tradition has it Clint worked for the Matson Navigation Company — traveling to Australia and the South Pacific — before returning to California.
The timing of his return was ill-fated, however, as he was back in San Francisco for the disastrous earthquake on April 18, 1906. Supposedly desiring a more stable terra firma was one of the contributing factors that led him to Idaho. It was there he met Rhoda Ellen Cryder, my great-grandmother, and they were married July 19, 1908, in Twin Falls, Idaho. Three sons; Albert, Ralph and John, and a daughter Lois, my grandmother, followed.
By all accounts, Clint established himself as a successful farmer and the family enjoyed a comfortable life. But it was not to be a long life. Clint died of a heart attack at the dinner table just days after his 46th birthday while visiting with friends. My grandmother was just 13 years old. Her brothers ranged in age from 7 to 20. Clint's father had died years before, but his mother, Mary, had the sad misfortune of outliving four of her five children.
I often contemplate those moments in life you look back on and recognize as turning points when your life would never be the same and Clint's death was one such moment for his devastated family. But today — along with America's 240th birthday — I am celebrating Arthur Clinton Smith, our "real live nephew of my Uncle Sam, born on the Fourth of July."
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