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Marriage: Children:
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Sources
1. Title:   Birth Cert & Dale J. Smith
2. Title:   Ohio Death Cert

Notes
a. Note:   My father loved life especially if it did not entail going to work (he was not lazy just enjoyed other things!!) He was born in Rendville, Ohio on December 13. 1910, (birth certificate # 8915, registration district # 3094, Perry County, Rendville OH. with his name being "Jr." He never used this.) Warren and Mary Jane Roberts Smith, His grandparents, mostly raised him in the little village of Hemlock, Ohio. He loved the outdoors & especially hunting and fishing. He did not finish grade school nor did he attend high school. Hence he was limited in reading & writing. He was an A+ student when it came to the school of life however. It was not easy to put one over on him. He was very street-wise & knew the ways of the world. My father saw Buffalo Bill in person when he was a little boy & I live about 3 miles from Buffalo Bill Cody's grave in Colorado.
  He moved to Dayton, Ohio after working as a miner in the coal mines of Southern Ohio. He went to work at General Motors, Frigidaire division, in Moraine City, OH as a metal finisher of refrigerator bodies & held that job until he retired in about 1972. This was a back breaking job & he had the upper body strength to prove it. He was a jack-of-all-trades & a master at all; especially when it came to fixing cars. He ran a car repair business from his home garage and did quite well because of the quality of his work.
  He met Theresa E. Vida, a waitress, at a restaurant in Dayton called "Brandt's". They were married on July 28, 1934 at St. Stephen's rectory in the old Hungarian Village, a walled city for immigrants. They had a large traditional Hungarian wedding He was a convert to Catholicism in 1951. He thought that education was every thing and hence his sons got the best education they wanted and/ or he could provide. In his younger years he could drink with the best of them and he always won. He took great pride in his home & living in North Dayton, far from his work in Moraine City. He was adored by his mother-in-law hence lots of meals were eaten at Grandma Vida's house. His wife loved him dearly but at times was perplexed with his obsessions dealing with hunting & fishing. He also liked to drink & smoke to excess periodically and this would cause problems with his tee-totaling, non-drinking wife.
  During World War II, he was drafted by the Army but was declared "ineligible for service" due to a duodenal ulcer. He went back to Moraine City and made airplane propellers. I think that the great depression of 1929 and WW II severely impacted both my parents and made them overly frugal, suspicious, and cautious.
  He loved to set trotlines in the Scioto River and catch huge catfish, hence his nickname "Catfish". His prize was a fifty-pounder. Later in life he began going deer hunting in Pennsylvania, New York and Canada. He usually got his deer and one time shot a large wildcat. He usually worked 16 hours a day either on fixing up other peoples cars or at another part time job. This made possible his many hobbies. He had all the paraphernalia for hunting & fishing. He would trap mink, muskrats and beaver. I would go on fox drives with him. He would gig frogs, catch turtles, hunt rabbits, squirrels, pheasant, and deer. He also tied fishing lures and loaded shells for his 30.06 rifle. His big desire was to go to Kodiak Island, Alaska and go bear hunting, but never got to live this fantasy. He did however become an honorary Indian. The tribe that he hunted with in Canada gave this honor. They liked him and his ability and made him a member...he even had a name. I believe they were the Algonquin Indians. He looked at Sports Afield and Outdoor Life religiously every month. He liked boating and we always had a boat. He liked to take 8 mm. movies of his family & the out of doors. He had a very nice gun collection. He was always busy doing things in the garage or basement. He was a religious man & liked to attend Mass. He liked to sing! & when we took auto rides " a reetso" he would sing in the car & had a good voice. He liked new cars & he enjoyed riding around in a green Karmen Ghia which he kept in perfect shape for many years. He loved to smoke cigarettes, eat cheese & crackers, especially Limburger, & get a jug of beer on Friday nights much to his wife's chagrin.
  In 1949 the Smith's & Vida's leased a restaurant along old route 42 near Waynesville, OH. It was called the "Log Cabin Inn" because that is what it was a log cabin. It was nice, on a very busy highway with lots of trucks. Theresa was the head cook & Geo. & Phyl the backup crew. We did this one year...very hard & time consuming. We made a profit & closed the place. It was torn down & a shiny Interstate highway is where it was. While we were there Dale went to St. Brigid GS in Xenia, OH. It was coed & differant. He had a very good time!
  In later life he spend a lot of time and eventually did retire on "the Muskingum River" in southern Ohio and do all his fun things. They lived in a new trailer home, off of Kosky Lane, on the banks of the river at R.R. #2, Box 123, Stockport Ohio. Historically, there is a small Revolutionary war cemetery nearby & the site of the very picturesque Big Bottom Indian Massacre is just down the road. He was a short, fun-loving, honest, hard workingman who always had a twinkle in his "elf-ish" eyes. He was a great dad who always wanted to protect his son's from the travails of life. He was able to enjoy retirement to the fullest & loved every moment of it although it wasn't very long.
  He also enjoyed travel. When his son was in the USN, he got to travel to various cities and enjoy something new in his life. A different kind of adventure. Of course, the main reason to go was to see his grandchildren. He got to Calif., PA, NM, & Colorado which he loved.
  His greatest pleasure however was his three, lovely grand-daughters & his daughter-in-law that he adored. He said he was never around them enough & at one point was planning to move to Colorado to be near them. He developed angina about 1973 which curtailed his activity and he said "if he couldn't hunt or fish; life would be unbearable." He came to Colorado in March of 1975 to attend the First Holy Communion of his three granddaughters at Christ the King Church. He developed severe angina and was hospitalized at Porter Memorial Hospital, had a cardiac catherization by Dr. Art Levine & advised to have bypass surgery & repair of a myocardial aneurysm. He returned to the river to "take care of things" & make a final decision about the surgery. On Tuesday, April 15. 1975 he went fishing. He came home to his trailer and died suddenly in the bedroom. He was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital, Zanesville, Ohio and pronounced dead at 2:49 P.M. He had an acute myocardial infaction. His only wish would have been that he had died on the riverbank while fishing. He was 64 years, 4 months, 2 days. He was buried from St. Stephens Church, Troy St, Dayton Ohio after Mass of Christian burial. He now lies on a knoll in Calvary Cemetery, Montgomery Co., OH (Patterson Blvd., in South Dayton-394329N 0841216W overlooking the very route that he took every day to work and "gets to see the workin' stiffs on their way to work, & I'll just smile." He is buried on St. James Dr. in Section 31, Lot 93, northeast corner. Walk 5 rows down the hill from the Pieta or Gosinger monument then 12 large monuments in and you should find them. There is a "touchdown" Jesus in area 31.
  Many photographs exist of him along with movies he took of his hunting trips to Canada with his friend Oscar Vorhees and fishing with the Filke family. His father (John S.) is shown helping him take the deer off the car X 2. He always said we were related to Amelia Earhart but I do not know how this could be. His brother, Delmar, knew her & participated in her last flight according to a cousin who knew him well as a young girl. That was the relationship.
  Interestingly with the total removal of General Motors in 1990's from Dayton, OH & the rapid decline of the city his factory burned down in 2008. The University of Dayton bought the NCR land & was rapidly expanding. North Dayton was turning into slums & Kiser HS is torn down & a very modern grade school has been built. Troy St is in shambles-SAD! Dale J. Smith, M.D. 1994



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