John Wheaton Smith
John Wheaton Smith
son of John Perry and Loulia Brennetta Allen Smith
Born August 23, 1900 --- Died Jan. 9, 1978
Tribute to (Uncle) (Grandpa) John Smith
What is a Grandpa? He’s a grandson’s idol, a granddaughter’s king. Some of his aliases are: “Damfod Piff” (Grandpa Smith), “Bampa” and “Dandad.” He can tell a tall tale that will widen the eyes of any child. He shoots Grandmas when they break their legs and rather than tell a grandson he can’t go with him, he informs him, “He’s off chasin’ women.”
A Grandpa can come in any size, color or shape and can sometimes be seen walking down the hall wearing nothing but his pipe.
He gets chastised by a Grandma for making a child throw back a sturgeon that lacks half an inch of being legal size, and he teaches his Granddaughter honesty. A Grandpa can be a boy, a hero, a giant or a man as the occasion may call for or he might be caught by a camera clowning around in one of Grandma’s dresses.
A Grandpa has a heart big enough to love all his grand children and a garden big enough to feed half the countryside. A Grandpa never “canes” a Grandma (more than once) and he always takes a bath at least once a year. He feels faint at the thought of all the women going Christmas shopping together and he swoons when he sees them come driving up in a car filled with packages.
— Grandpas stay around for a long time. They teach, they tease, and they pass on tradition and as the years pass by he makes a granddaughter proud that her children will have the memory he leaves.
You may ask how we could have ever done without a Grandpa? The answer is simple--we couldn’t have. He is the best tradition that a family can ever have. A Grandpa is one of life’s most precious gifts.
By Ann Smith Shoopman
John W. Smith
written by Gwen Smith
I surprised even myself when I married John. I was teaching 4th grade in Weiser, Idaho. My life was pleasant and Weiser was close enough to Midvale, Where my parents lived. I enjoyed the children and the teachers that I worked with. I had lived in Weiser as a teenager and felt at home there. So it was a shock to everyone when I married John Smith after only knowing him six weeks.
John was working for the Idaho Fish and Game Department as was Floyd Dillon who owned the lovely old brick home where I rented a room in which I batched. Floyd and Margaret had been very good friends to me so on that Friday evening when they called up to me that they were driving to Boise and world like to have me ride along, I thought it would be a welcome change of scenery. I went downstairs---and met my fate.
John was Floyd's boss and had been to Seattle on business. He traveled by train and on the return trip decided to get off at Weiser and walk to Floyd's and talk him into taking him on home to Boise in the state car. There was always the chance that they'd see someone poaching on such a trip.
I had heard the Dillon's speak of John but had not seen him around until that fateful evening. After that it seemed that there were so many reasons why he needed to come from Boise to work with Floyd, so he was there every weekend.
Their work was patrolling the surrounding country and up the Weiser River, checking fishermen and watching to see that people were not opening game bird or deer seasons too early. Always they would ask Margaret and me to go along. Usually we fixed a lunch and had a picnic at noon.
This was in the spring of 1945. I learned that John had been divorced for about two years and had two sons who were in the Marines somewhere on the Islands of the Pacific. He also had a married daughter and two grandchildren. I began to look forward to the week ends and the visits with John Smith. He had such expressive brown eyes that would look so sad when he talked about his boys. Ordinarily they were friendly and kind but at times there would be a mischievous twinkle in them as he told stories about the country we traveled in. As I became more interested in this man I felt that things had to be changed. This patrolling about the country deal, where Floyd and John rode in the front seat and talked Game Department and Margaret and I sat in the back seat and talked girl talk, had gone on long enough… Soon after I had come to this conclusion, one noon I had driven from school to town and was eating lunch in a little cafe. A friend who also roomed at Dillon's came in and told me that John was out at Floyd's. I decided I had business there so leaving my car on a side street, walked the two blocks home. After kidding around a bit I asked John if he was going to make me walk all the way back to school. Being a gentleman, he drove me. In the course of that ten blocks in his car, we made a date and from there on, it was only a matter of time. School was out in about three weeks. By that time we'd decided to get married as soon as I'd finished my work at school.
Six weeks is really a short time to get acquainted with the man you marry and I found I had much to learn. Before I married John though, he told me that he was a World War One Veteran. He had wanted to fight for his country and had been afraid the war would be over if he waited so enlisted in the Canadian Army when he was 15. He was in France when the United States entered the war. He left the Canadian Army and joined the Army of the United States spending most of his time in San Francisco in training camp. In 1918 after the Armistice was signed, he was sent to Siberia with the American Expeditionary Force which was there until 1919. While there he was caught in an artillery barrage and badly wounded. He laid out in the field for hours before he was found and brought to a hospital. He spent weeks in the hospital in Vladivostok; then was shipped back to San Francisco where he spent months in a Veterans Hospital. All of his life when I knew him he refused to go to a Veterans Hospital --- even to visit a friend. One result of the trip to Siberia was that John lost his hearing and had to wear a hearing aid for the rest of his life. When he was discharged from the Veteran's Hospital in California, the doctors told him that he probably would not live long so he should go out and have a good time. After I had learned this I understood even more why those nice brown eyes looked so sad and worried when he thought about those boys of his who were fighting in another war.
During the summer after we were married, John's work took him to North Idaho for half of the month; then back to Boise for half the month where we lived in a small rock house on the Boise River in South Boise. I went with him and I learned that a Game Warden can become so engrossed in his work… he can forget he has a wife and leave her standing on the curb in a strange town miles from home - with little money in her pocketbook. I had been sent to a grocery store to buy food while he gassed up the car. I stood on the street corner almost in tears wondering just what to do when here he came.
I hadn't seen much of Idaho so these trips were a wonderful experience for me --- and John knew the country so well and could tell about all of it.
I learned much about the life of a Game Warden that summer it is definitely different from the life of a school teacher. I learned that there is never a dull minute in the life of a game warden --- at least not one like John. He took his work seriously.
That the law came first and must be enforced was thoroughly impressed upon me. John was a law enforcement officer, first and last. I have seen him arrest a man for fishing without a license, take him to the judge who would fine him, then John would pay his fine to keep him from going to jail. "Why, the poor man had a sick wife, nine kids and no job." We usually had a supply of guns, fishing gear, transistor radios, watches or such on a shelf in the spare bedroom that had been left as security when he'd paid a fine for someone. Often there was no security, but amazingly they always paid him back. I still have one transistor radio that no one ever came to buy back. Also the thing that I never did exactly understand was that many of his best friends were people he had arrested!
I also learned that under ideal circumstances I must always be prepared to feed an extra man or two. Circumstances were not always ideal, however, as happened in a motel in Coeur d'Alene one night that first summer.
We had come down from Bonners Ferry, driving 35 mph as the law required in 1945. John had an appointment to meet a man so hurriedly dropped me off at the motel. It was close to a grocery store so I bought food for the evening meal including two little steaks. Then I waited. We had not eaten since early AM so by eight o'clock I was starved. I fixed a meal and fried one steak for me. I'd hardly finished eating when he came and he'd brought a friend. Well, there was plenty of other things and they shared the steak. This sort of thing happened often and I learned to accept it. It was forgivable because he always had something nice to say. If the pieces of meat were small, he told me, "Honey, you make the best gravy."
During the last ten years or so before he retired he had a dog named, Bill, who went with him on his patrols. Bill was half Springer Spaniel and half Drathaar, a German hunting dog sort of grayish color with dark brown spots and extremely ugly. Bill became a second game warden. Hearing aids are helpful but when you have to wear one, you don't hear what's behind you or you can't hear sounds at a distance. Bill heard everything and had ways of telling John. Not only could he hear, he could smell --- and he seemed to know what it was all about. If a poacher hid a pheasant in the hubcap of his car, Bill knew it and reported… they made a good pair. John's eyes missed nothing. Bill's ears and nose missed nothing. They became the best of pals. Bill was not a fighter but if he thought John was threatened, he was dangerous. In one instance a man threatened to kill Bill and I learned that John could be dangerous too. He actually drew his gun and threatened to kill that man.
John enjoyed telling stories on me -- like about how I tricked him into marrying him or how when he fell in the river once, I stood on the bank and yelled, "Throw me your wallet, John" over and over. Or like when I was helping to push the car going up a hill on a hot day. The car would vapor lock and stall. In the process, I fell and the trailer, which was carrying a boat and camping sundries, ran over my left foot. His story was that after he told me, that when the last squaw he had broke her leg he had to shoot her, I found I was able to get on my own feet and walk up the hill. I learned to cope with this by telling a few tales of my own. He definitely didn't like that.
Those of John's grandchildren who were fortunate enough to live where they could be with him a great deal are full of the stories he would tell --- how he fought the Indians on that hill and Billy the Kid fought off Indians together --- how he fought Chief Whitebird and was scalped, having his scalp sewed back on with porcupine quills --- on and on. All of the older Grandchildren talk about the silver dollars Grandad gave them. In later years these became dollar bills.
All was not nonsense in their experiences with Grandad though. He was an Idaho game Warden and a strict law enforcement officer. His grandchildren were taught this and other lessons. His two sons came up through the same school. He inspired a sort of hero worship in them. Both sons became game wardens like Dad --- and his daughter never forgave fate for making her a girl. Between the three Smith game wardens there was 99 years put into the service of the people of Idaho. Three grandsons became law enforcement officers.
John had saved his money during the war and had paid off the mortgage on his mother's farm as soon as he came home. All his life he was a soft touch, if members of the family needed help, all they needed to do was ask John. He constantly cautioned me about spending money at Christmas or otherwise. Yet when Christmas came, he was the biggest Santa Claus of all.
It is my opinion that my fate was a wonderful destiny for my years with John Smith were definitely educational, interesting and never dull. I am proud to be his wife.....
By Gwen Butler Smith
Note: The three grandsons who became law enforcement officers are Kris Lee Smith, Bart Lynn Smith, John Franklin Smith.
Fishing and Hunting with Uncle John Smith
by Bert Byington
I used to go hunting with Uncle John Smith. He was my mothers brother. One day we decided to go hunting for cottontail rabbits. This one particular day, dad had a gun, and John had a gun, but I didn't have a gun. We went down to the canal by the sage brush and made plans to spread out, thirty to forty feet apart. That way we could cover quite a lot of territory. And of course with me along, without a gun, I could serve the purpose of scaring the rabbits out and they would jump up and John would try to shoot them.
However on this day, we had gone down about a mile through the sagebrush and then we turned and came back. And no rabbits, we hadn't seen any rabbits. We were coming along and we were just about to put the guns away and forget about it and all at once a little rabbit jumped up right in front of me. Just three feet away! He just made one big dive right under a sagebrush bush. So I just fell over right quick on top of him! I had Him in my hands and I reached under and got a hold of his legs. Then I called to Uncle John. When Uncle John came over, I held the rabbit while he shot it! Now you can imagine what it did to Uncle John, when I repeated that story! I loved to see him squirm when I'd tell some of his friends how I had to catch the rabbits and hold them before he could shoot one. I loved to embarrass him! Especially since he was a game warden.
He and I used to go fishing. One year when He came back form the war, he was pretty shell shocked and pretty shook up. So instead of staying around home (which was in Utah), he came to Idaho to stay with us. He stayed with us close to a year. And when spring came, we would take the fishing line and poles and go down to the river every morning. There was a certain time, that the fish would start to biting. We'd go down there and it would only take us a little while and we'd have us a nice fish. Sometimes we didn't, but most of the time we did. It was just a daily habit we had, we'd go everyday! I can remember one day we went down and I used to love to fish, I was quite young then, and we'd fish and fish and fish and we hadn't caught one. And John wanted to go. He just kept saying, let's go home. I said, Oh lets stay just a little longer. And a little while longer would go by and he'd say "oh, we better go now". So I'd coax him again, "can't we stay just a little longer"? " I'll give you another minute or two said Uncle John". "And if you don't catch a fish then we better go". "OK", I said. and kept fishing along desperately trying to get something. Then all at once, a little minnow came along and hooked on my hook and I pulled him out! He must have been all of three inches long! Well Uncle John was as good as his word, so he stayed another twenty to thirty minutes and we didn't catch any fish, (ha, ha, ha,).
son of John Perry and Loulia Brennetta Allen Smith
Born August 23, 1900 --- Died Jan. 9, 1978
Tribute to (Uncle) (Grandpa) John Smith
What is a Grandpa? He’s a grandson’s idol, a granddaughter’s king. Some of his aliases are: “Damfod Piff” (Grandpa Smith), “Bampa” and “Dandad.” He can tell a tall tale that will widen the eyes of any child. He shoots Grandmas when they break their legs and rather than tell a grandson he can’t go with him, he informs him, “He’s off chasin’ women.”
A Grandpa can come in any size, color or shape and can sometimes be seen walking down the hall wearing nothing but his pipe.
He gets chastised by a Grandma for making a child throw back a sturgeon that lacks half an inch of being legal size, and he teaches his Granddaughter honesty. A Grandpa can be a boy, a hero, a giant or a man as the occasion may call for or he might be caught by a camera clowning around in one of Grandma’s dresses.
A Grandpa has a heart big enough to love all his grand children and a garden big enough to feed half the countryside. A Grandpa never “canes” a Grandma (more than once) and he always takes a bath at least once a year. He feels faint at the thought of all the women going Christmas shopping together and he swoons when he sees them come driving up in a car filled with packages.
— Grandpas stay around for a long time. They teach, they tease, and they pass on tradition and as the years pass by he makes a granddaughter proud that her children will have the memory he leaves.
You may ask how we could have ever done without a Grandpa? The answer is simple--we couldn’t have. He is the best tradition that a family can ever have. A Grandpa is one of life’s most precious gifts.
By Ann Smith Shoopman
John W. Smith
written by Gwen Smith
I surprised even myself when I married John. I was teaching 4th grade in Weiser, Idaho. My life was pleasant and Weiser was close enough to Midvale, Where my parents lived. I enjoyed the children and the teachers that I worked with. I had lived in Weiser as a teenager and felt at home there. So it was a shock to everyone when I married John Smith after only knowing him six weeks.
John was working for the Idaho Fish and Game Department as was Floyd Dillon who owned the lovely old brick home where I rented a room in which I batched. Floyd and Margaret had been very good friends to me so on that Friday evening when they called up to me that they were driving to Boise and world like to have me ride along, I thought it would be a welcome change of scenery. I went downstairs---and met my fate.
John was Floyd's boss and had been to Seattle on business. He traveled by train and on the return trip decided to get off at Weiser and walk to Floyd's and talk him into taking him on home to Boise in the state car. There was always the chance that they'd see someone poaching on such a trip.
I had heard the Dillon's speak of John but had not seen him around until that fateful evening. After that it seemed that there were so many reasons why he needed to come from Boise to work with Floyd, so he was there every weekend.
Their work was patrolling the surrounding country and up the Weiser River, checking fishermen and watching to see that people were not opening game bird or deer seasons too early. Always they would ask Margaret and me to go along. Usually we fixed a lunch and had a picnic at noon.
This was in the spring of 1945. I learned that John had been divorced for about two years and had two sons who were in the Marines somewhere on the Islands of the Pacific. He also had a married daughter and two grandchildren. I began to look forward to the week ends and the visits with John Smith. He had such expressive brown eyes that would look so sad when he talked about his boys. Ordinarily they were friendly and kind but at times there would be a mischievous twinkle in them as he told stories about the country we traveled in. As I became more interested in this man I felt that things had to be changed. This patrolling about the country deal, where Floyd and John rode in the front seat and talked Game Department and Margaret and I sat in the back seat and talked girl talk, had gone on long enough… Soon after I had come to this conclusion, one noon I had driven from school to town and was eating lunch in a little cafe. A friend who also roomed at Dillon's came in and told me that John was out at Floyd's. I decided I had business there so leaving my car on a side street, walked the two blocks home. After kidding around a bit I asked John if he was going to make me walk all the way back to school. Being a gentleman, he drove me. In the course of that ten blocks in his car, we made a date and from there on, it was only a matter of time. School was out in about three weeks. By that time we'd decided to get married as soon as I'd finished my work at school.
Six weeks is really a short time to get acquainted with the man you marry and I found I had much to learn. Before I married John though, he told me that he was a World War One Veteran. He had wanted to fight for his country and had been afraid the war would be over if he waited so enlisted in the Canadian Army when he was 15. He was in France when the United States entered the war. He left the Canadian Army and joined the Army of the United States spending most of his time in San Francisco in training camp. In 1918 after the Armistice was signed, he was sent to Siberia with the American Expeditionary Force which was there until 1919. While there he was caught in an artillery barrage and badly wounded. He laid out in the field for hours before he was found and brought to a hospital. He spent weeks in the hospital in Vladivostok; then was shipped back to San Francisco where he spent months in a Veterans Hospital. All of his life when I knew him he refused to go to a Veterans Hospital --- even to visit a friend. One result of the trip to Siberia was that John lost his hearing and had to wear a hearing aid for the rest of his life. When he was discharged from the Veteran's Hospital in California, the doctors told him that he probably would not live long so he should go out and have a good time. After I had learned this I understood even more why those nice brown eyes looked so sad and worried when he thought about those boys of his who were fighting in another war.
During the summer after we were married, John's work took him to North Idaho for half of the month; then back to Boise for half the month where we lived in a small rock house on the Boise River in South Boise. I went with him and I learned that a Game Warden can become so engrossed in his work… he can forget he has a wife and leave her standing on the curb in a strange town miles from home - with little money in her pocketbook. I had been sent to a grocery store to buy food while he gassed up the car. I stood on the street corner almost in tears wondering just what to do when here he came.
I hadn't seen much of Idaho so these trips were a wonderful experience for me --- and John knew the country so well and could tell about all of it.
I learned much about the life of a Game Warden that summer it is definitely different from the life of a school teacher. I learned that there is never a dull minute in the life of a game warden --- at least not one like John. He took his work seriously.
That the law came first and must be enforced was thoroughly impressed upon me. John was a law enforcement officer, first and last. I have seen him arrest a man for fishing without a license, take him to the judge who would fine him, then John would pay his fine to keep him from going to jail. "Why, the poor man had a sick wife, nine kids and no job." We usually had a supply of guns, fishing gear, transistor radios, watches or such on a shelf in the spare bedroom that had been left as security when he'd paid a fine for someone. Often there was no security, but amazingly they always paid him back. I still have one transistor radio that no one ever came to buy back. Also the thing that I never did exactly understand was that many of his best friends were people he had arrested!
I also learned that under ideal circumstances I must always be prepared to feed an extra man or two. Circumstances were not always ideal, however, as happened in a motel in Coeur d'Alene one night that first summer.
We had come down from Bonners Ferry, driving 35 mph as the law required in 1945. John had an appointment to meet a man so hurriedly dropped me off at the motel. It was close to a grocery store so I bought food for the evening meal including two little steaks. Then I waited. We had not eaten since early AM so by eight o'clock I was starved. I fixed a meal and fried one steak for me. I'd hardly finished eating when he came and he'd brought a friend. Well, there was plenty of other things and they shared the steak. This sort of thing happened often and I learned to accept it. It was forgivable because he always had something nice to say. If the pieces of meat were small, he told me, "Honey, you make the best gravy."
During the last ten years or so before he retired he had a dog named, Bill, who went with him on his patrols. Bill was half Springer Spaniel and half Drathaar, a German hunting dog sort of grayish color with dark brown spots and extremely ugly. Bill became a second game warden. Hearing aids are helpful but when you have to wear one, you don't hear what's behind you or you can't hear sounds at a distance. Bill heard everything and had ways of telling John. Not only could he hear, he could smell --- and he seemed to know what it was all about. If a poacher hid a pheasant in the hubcap of his car, Bill knew it and reported… they made a good pair. John's eyes missed nothing. Bill's ears and nose missed nothing. They became the best of pals. Bill was not a fighter but if he thought John was threatened, he was dangerous. In one instance a man threatened to kill Bill and I learned that John could be dangerous too. He actually drew his gun and threatened to kill that man.
John enjoyed telling stories on me -- like about how I tricked him into marrying him or how when he fell in the river once, I stood on the bank and yelled, "Throw me your wallet, John" over and over. Or like when I was helping to push the car going up a hill on a hot day. The car would vapor lock and stall. In the process, I fell and the trailer, which was carrying a boat and camping sundries, ran over my left foot. His story was that after he told me, that when the last squaw he had broke her leg he had to shoot her, I found I was able to get on my own feet and walk up the hill. I learned to cope with this by telling a few tales of my own. He definitely didn't like that.
Those of John's grandchildren who were fortunate enough to live where they could be with him a great deal are full of the stories he would tell --- how he fought the Indians on that hill and Billy the Kid fought off Indians together --- how he fought Chief Whitebird and was scalped, having his scalp sewed back on with porcupine quills --- on and on. All of the older Grandchildren talk about the silver dollars Grandad gave them. In later years these became dollar bills.
All was not nonsense in their experiences with Grandad though. He was an Idaho game Warden and a strict law enforcement officer. His grandchildren were taught this and other lessons. His two sons came up through the same school. He inspired a sort of hero worship in them. Both sons became game wardens like Dad --- and his daughter never forgave fate for making her a girl. Between the three Smith game wardens there was 99 years put into the service of the people of Idaho. Three grandsons became law enforcement officers.
John had saved his money during the war and had paid off the mortgage on his mother's farm as soon as he came home. All his life he was a soft touch, if members of the family needed help, all they needed to do was ask John. He constantly cautioned me about spending money at Christmas or otherwise. Yet when Christmas came, he was the biggest Santa Claus of all.
It is my opinion that my fate was a wonderful destiny for my years with John Smith were definitely educational, interesting and never dull. I am proud to be his wife.....
By Gwen Butler Smith
Note: The three grandsons who became law enforcement officers are Kris Lee Smith, Bart Lynn Smith, John Franklin Smith.
Fishing and Hunting with Uncle John Smith
by Bert Byington
I used to go hunting with Uncle John Smith. He was my mothers brother. One day we decided to go hunting for cottontail rabbits. This one particular day, dad had a gun, and John had a gun, but I didn't have a gun. We went down to the canal by the sage brush and made plans to spread out, thirty to forty feet apart. That way we could cover quite a lot of territory. And of course with me along, without a gun, I could serve the purpose of scaring the rabbits out and they would jump up and John would try to shoot them.
However on this day, we had gone down about a mile through the sagebrush and then we turned and came back. And no rabbits, we hadn't seen any rabbits. We were coming along and we were just about to put the guns away and forget about it and all at once a little rabbit jumped up right in front of me. Just three feet away! He just made one big dive right under a sagebrush bush. So I just fell over right quick on top of him! I had Him in my hands and I reached under and got a hold of his legs. Then I called to Uncle John. When Uncle John came over, I held the rabbit while he shot it! Now you can imagine what it did to Uncle John, when I repeated that story! I loved to see him squirm when I'd tell some of his friends how I had to catch the rabbits and hold them before he could shoot one. I loved to embarrass him! Especially since he was a game warden.
He and I used to go fishing. One year when He came back form the war, he was pretty shell shocked and pretty shook up. So instead of staying around home (which was in Utah), he came to Idaho to stay with us. He stayed with us close to a year. And when spring came, we would take the fishing line and poles and go down to the river every morning. There was a certain time, that the fish would start to biting. We'd go down there and it would only take us a little while and we'd have us a nice fish. Sometimes we didn't, but most of the time we did. It was just a daily habit we had, we'd go everyday! I can remember one day we went down and I used to love to fish, I was quite young then, and we'd fish and fish and fish and we hadn't caught one. And John wanted to go. He just kept saying, let's go home. I said, Oh lets stay just a little longer. And a little while longer would go by and he'd say "oh, we better go now". So I'd coax him again, "can't we stay just a little longer"? " I'll give you another minute or two said Uncle John". "And if you don't catch a fish then we better go". "OK", I said. and kept fishing along desperately trying to get something. Then all at once, a little minnow came along and hooked on my hook and I pulled him out! He must have been all of three inches long! Well Uncle John was as good as his word, so he stayed another twenty to thirty minutes and we didn't catch any fish, (ha, ha, ha,).