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Family
Marriage: Children:
  1. Diane Marie Smit: Birth: 22 Feb 1949 in Oakland, CA, USA. Death: 13 Dec 1985 in Kaiser Hospital, Palo Alto, California, USA

  2. Person Not Viewable


Sources
1. Title:   LDS Church Record
2. Title:   US Army World War II Separation Qualification Letter
Publication:   WD AGO Form 100 dated 1 Jul 1945)
3. Title:   Certified Copy of an Entry of Birth
4. Title:   Certified Copy of an Entry of Death
5. Title:   Funeral Notice
6. Title:   Marriage Certificate

Notes
a. Note:   !Death - Date verified on the Social Security Death Index !Death - Dates verified on death certificate (included)
 !Occupation - Note from Warren N. Smit Jr.: After WW II, dad started as an apprentice plumber in the Oakland, CA, USA, area, where he had worked in the Richmond shipyards prior to the war. He was first interested in becoming an engineer but decided instead to do a "hands on" type of work. From 1951 to 1963, we moved almost every two or three years from Oakland to Castro Valley to Santa Barbara to Sunnyvale to Santa Clara to Saratoga to Monte Sereno. As the Santa Clara Valley became what was later known as Silicon Valley, my dad became a specialized industrial plumber, working on the microchip-producing plants built by IBM, Apple, Intel, and others. He helped build the first solar-powered building in the state. He always laughed and said that, although the building was touted as a huge success, the auxilliary gas heater was on full blast all the time to make up for the lack of heat produced by the solar collectors. When you did a job with my father, you stood back in awe at his technical expertise and were willing to help in any way you possibly could. He was very well respected throughout the plumbing community and very sorely missed by his peers when he retired in 1985 and when he passed in 1992. He made a few pieces of furniture which were definitely one of a kind. He also was an avid model railroader and at one time built an entire scene in the back of the shed with a mountain pass and town. He could carve, weld, paint, draw, do carpentry and masonary work. I still have a large pipe wrench of his which measures about 40 inches from end to end and weighs about 60 lbs. It was painted red, white, and blue and hung outside under the patio cover he built. When I asked him why he had done this, he told me that this was the wrench he had used for so many years while working. When he "hung up his saddle," then he also hung up the wrench.
 !Autobiography - My Life's Story by Warren Neale Smit, Sr.
 I shall write the things that I can remember. I can well see the wisdom of keeping a journal when one is young. It would bring back so many things one has forgotten and jar the memory to many, many, experiences.
 I was born on the 14th of July in Georgetown Idaho in 1921.
 I was blessed by my Grandfather Larson my mother’s father, and given the name of Warren Neale a name taken from a Zane Grey novel that my dad was reading. I remember that my dad like Zane Gray novels - all about the old west. Warren Neale was a surveyor for the Central Pacific R.R. in Wyoming in one of Greys novels.
 We moved from Georgetown to Rexburg Ida. In about 1925. I can remember some of the trip. We moved in a coverd wagon, and a one seater buggy. I can recall my oldest brother Leon drove the buggy while dad drove the wagon. It may not have always been thus but it is my recolection of things.
 It had to have been in the summer because the roads were not open early spring or late fall - and of course winter -.
 Soon after we arrived in Rexburg our horses were stolen one nite. They only took the good ones, but we never saw them again, and it was quite a blow to my dad’s economy.
 Thinking that they may have gone back home; my dad had Leon who was about 13 or 14 years of age, take the buggy, and a pony that was left and retrace back to Georgetown. No luck.
 I remember the sherrif coming around with his big stetson hat, and all, but he said he could find nothing.
 We lived in the old third ward where we had a chapel built of rock.
 In the winter Time the people who came with horse, and wagon used to put horse blankets on the horses and let them munch on hay during services.
 There was one bit pot bellied stove at the front of the chapel, and altho it would get red hot you could not feel the heat in the back rows. That is the only time tha I have ever seen mormons come to church early to get on the front row.
 Right before meeting started they would fill the heater with coal. Then after the Sacrement was passed they would fill it again. When Some body got up to speak they would try not to give longer than a one bucket of coal speech, otherwise they would be rudely interupted by the loud comotion caused by refueling the fire. I was a good hint for them to set down. I have often found myself missing that little reminder in some speeches that I have heard since.
 When they passed the sacrement they would carry a pitcher of water, and fill a glass and send it down the row. If some child was thirsty they would drink the whole thing. In 1927 the scarlet fever was going around and I believe it was the use of this common glass that helped to spread it around. That Winter I was in bed with both scarlet fever and rubella (german measles).
 The authorities of the town would come and mail a quarntine sign on the house so that nobody left the house, and nobody entered. My mother would open the window a crack while one of our good neighbors would hand her the mail. I don’t know whether the quarintine worked as well as some little preventitive action might have.
 I missed so much school that I had to do the first grade over again in 1928.
 We used to herd milk cows up by the acadamy as Ricks college was called. There was only the one building there and altho college Avenue went up the hill a little way there were no buildings.
 We had no water except a well with a hand pump outside. Some winters our pump would not freeze altho other people’s would, and they would come, and get water in buckets and carry it home. One winter our pump froze and my older brother Lynn, and I would carry from the neighbors - quite a job on wash day -.
 We used kerosene lamps for lighting as there was no electric in the house. It was a job of my two older sisters Ione, and May to trim the wicks and clean the chimnies.
 There was a little store on the corner ran by the Higly family. If an accident happened and we broke a lamp chimney they sold them for five cents apiece which was a lot of money for us.
 My dad had a bad leg that he got from falling from a horse, that ran a way with his foot caught in the stiryp. He spent a lot of time in the hospital in Idaho Falls, but the leg never healed. He had to use a steel brace, and a crutch the rest of his life.
 While he was in the hospital 1927-28 we lived very close to our belly. Our stomach was always sore from rubbing against our backbone. I recall one time when we aquired some corn meal, and mom would boil it in water, but we had nothing to go with it.
 About that time my sister May invited one of her girlfriends to eat supper with us. I remember feeling ashamed and wondered why she did it when all we had was this corn meal. My feelings were put to rest when we sat down to eat. The girlfreind scarfed hers down before we hardly got started. I guess she was worse off than we were.
 In the summer of 1928 we moved from Rexburg to Bountiful Utah.
 My Dad came up from Salt Lake with another man who was driving a 1925C cab model T truck. We loaded our stuff in, and we were all piled in with it, and away we went. Probably at the speed of 20 to 25 m.p.h. I thot we were going to the end of the world having never ridden in an automobile more than a mile or two in my life.
 When we got to Bountiful we were in another world altogether. The people were not as frendly, and I very often heard my mother say that she would give a lot to be back in Rexburg 3rd Ward again.
 I went to the second, and third grad in Bountiful at the Stoker School.
 In February of my 3rd grade year I became very sick as a result of having had scarlet fever and measles in Rexburg. My body swelled up like a toad I was dizzy most of the time, and finally one Sunday morning I could not get out of bed.
 They called the doctor, and he took one look at me, and asked why he hadn’t been called sooner. My folks told him they were hadn’t the money to pay, and he told them he would sooner been called while I was still alive, and he did not think I could live but a short time longer.
 My lungs were filling with water so he would mix a table spoon of epsom salt with a glass of water. When I would drink it I would bend over, and vomit and it would force some of the water from my lungs.
 He made arrangements for me to go to L.D.S. hospital that same day, as he said I was dying, and they may be able to do something altho he said the could not think what it could be.
 The hospital determined that I had a very bad valve in my heard as well as non functioning kidneys.
 I could lay on my back, and listen to the noise the blood made as my heard would pump, and the blood would leak back through the faulty valve.
 We were lucky to arrive at the hospital on a Sunday because there were Two young Elders whose assignment was to be in there between their meetings to administer to whomever would request it. They came around where my bed was, (I think my mother had requested it) and asked if I wanted a blessing to get well.
 I thank the Lord for the primary Teachers who had instilled in me the faith that the Elders could bless, and heal me.
 I do not remember the blessing, but I’ve been told that they blessed me to have a (long and Rich Life) which so far I have had, and I think the Lord will make much longer.
 On Monday morning when breakfast was being served all around me (all the children were bedridden in the childrens ward) I waited patiently but hungryly for mine.
 When they began to clean away the dishes from the others I figured they had forgotten me so I asked the nurse if they had. She gave me a very strange look, and asked “are you hungry?”
 Before I knew it she came back with a Doctor who went over, and over me. Then he told the nurse that I could have some orange juice.
 Then, another doctor came and so forth all morning. I don’t believe they could believe that I was so much improved.
 When Mom came to visit in the afternoon they must have told her. She told me that the blessing was making me well.
 I was back home in thirty Days.
 Never been real sick since.
  BURIAL: Burial date from burial program and from knowledge of son, Warren Smit Jr.
  (Note by WN Smit,Jr) Warren Neale was named after a character in the Zane Gray novel "U.P. Trail."
 Gray spells the name Neale, but my father's birth certificate and the spelling he used all his life was Neal. Why it was changed back to Neale for me, I don't know.
  !Army Service - According to his wife, Lily Gleave, who was engaged to WNS Sr at the time: "Born in Idaho. He is a California Vet. Dad was in the Air Force at Burtonwood AFB, England. When they needed more men for the front line in Europe, they asked for volunteers. Dad was the first one to do so. He went over to the European front and was in General Patton's Thrid Army."


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