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Note: As a student at what later became Birmingham-Southern College, from the BSC Archivist, 18 Sep 2014:
"After giving it quite a bit of searching, I was only able to find your grandfather's name once, in the manuscript Record of North Alabama Conference College. He is listed as student number 23, age twenty, on September 13, 1905, a sophomore and Methodist from Gaylesville. I was unable to locate his name as a freshman. In 1906, North Alabama Conference College would change its name to Birmingham College (nicknamed Owenton College for the neighborhood in which it was located); and in 1918, Birmingham College would merge with Southern University to form Birmingham-Southern College. I'm afraid that our records from N.A.C.C. are quite poor. Only once would they issue a yearbook--1907, the year after your grandfather left. I've attached an image from that yearbook showing the main building."
See Media for the main building photo.
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After a short time at Birmingham Southern he transferred to Alabama Polytechnic Institute (now Auburn University) in Auburn, Lee County, Alabama, to study electrical engineering. A record in the College of Engineering shows he entered Auburn in a "special class" in January, 1906. This classification indicated he came as a transfer student. See Media.
At Auburn, Frank was a member of the Glee Club, according to his daughter Betty, and was on the Varsity Baseball team that was coached by the legendary Mike Donahue, who was better known as a football coach. Frank also played fullback for his Senior class football team. Back home in Gaylesville, he played on the town baseball team and Woodrow Chesnut was quoted: “Mr. Frank swats that baseball a country mile.”
In 1908 Frank was a member of the Turkey Club at A.P.I., whose colors were “Dark and Light.” The club motto was “Fare is fowl, and fowl is fair.” The emblem: “Drum stick in a sea rampart on a sea of gravy.” He was listed as one of the four “Most proficient and unexcelled gobblers. Other honorary titles were: Toast Master, Turkey Lifter, Fireman, Booze Grafter, and Pan Greaser.”
When I (Betty Smyer Shackelford) attended Uncle Fred's (Fred Lamont Smyer) funeral in Birmingham in 1970, I met Robert DeArmond Russell, a banker and a cousin of Daddy and Uncle Fred. He was between them in age, having been born in 1892. When he learned who I am, he delighted me by telling me some of his memories of Daddy. Cousin Robert had either lived in Gaylesville or had often visited there during his younger days. At the time Buffalo Bill Cody and his Wild West Show were in their heyday, Cousin Robert saw Daddy do some wild west riding. Cousin Robert related how Daddy would hold onto a horse's mane, start the horse galloping, all the while running alongside the horse. Then Daddy would swing himself up onto the horse's bare back, jump off the horse's back on the opposite side, run alongside, again mount the horse, jump off the first side. He galloped the horse in a wide circle of admirers, alternating mounting, jumping off one side, remounting, jumping off the opposite side. Daddy was the only boy in his group who could do this. The other boys would applaud and say, "Frank Smyer, you're a real live trick rider! You oughta be in Buffalo Bill's show!"
Broadway is a major street in Gary, Lake County, Indiana, and the streets west of Broadway are named for U. S. presidents in succession beginning with Washington and ending with Taft. The 1911 RFS residence of 717 Adams Street is two blocks west of Broadway and seven blocks south of Lake Michigan.
On 19 Sep 1885, Rev. Robert A. Speer baptized Robert Franklin Smyer, Sr. in the Gaylesville Church in Cherokee County, Alabama. Rev. Speer was a member of the North Alabama Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Over 111 years later, on 03 May 1997, Rev. Speer's granddaughter Mary Florence Roberts Irwin married Robert Franklin Smyer, Jr. in the Prince of Peace Presbyterian Church in Crofton, Anne Arundel County, Maryland.
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