William Loyd Smith
Born: 12 Oct 1924
Died: 1949, Indianapolis, IN Buried: Holy Cross
Cemetery, Indianapolis
Father: SD Smith
Mother: Amie Myrtle Holmes Smith
Brother: Fred Dwight Smith
William
Smith, aka Bill or Dickie, was the first child. He was 4 years older
than Fred but they were best of friends. A funny story Fred told was
when they were young Bill and Fred slept in a room that was adjacent
to the room where their parents slept. Bill told Fred to yell “Stop
digging those taters in there and get up and fix some breakfast”,
which he did. SD didn't think it was so funny. When they returned
home they found that their beds had been moved upstairs.
Once
when Bill did something bad, Amy made Bill go out to the peach tree
and cut the switch she was going to use on him. He went and got the
switch and gave it to her. When she hit him with the switch it
immediately broke into pieces from where Bill had put notches in the
branch. Amy couldn't help but to start laughing, and told him to
just get out of here.
Bill was the first of his immediate family to move from Sumner County,
TN to Indianapolis, IN when he came to stay with his Aunt Pauline
(Amies sister) in 1937. Bill got a bicycle delivery job, and his
parents SD and Amie and his brother Fred joined him and stayed with
uncle Edgar Robinson
shortly thereafter. After they got settled in, the family moved
to 321 S. Rural St. in Indianapolis.
Although Bill was thin and weighed maybe 160 pounds, he worked
as a
bouncer in one of the roughest bars in Indianapolis, the Hollywood
bar. It turned
out to be a bad choice of jobs though. Bill died in 1949 when he
was "accidently" shot in a bar on the east side of Indianapolis.
Photo of Bill taken in 1948 outside his home.
