James (aka “Jimmy” and “Jared”) Thomas Smith was born on October 4, 1903, to Erasmus Nathan Smith and Annie Laura Jared in Mulberry, TN when Nathan was 19 and his mother 18 years old.

Laura, his mother, died on 11 Feb, 1904 (her cause of death is not known) when he was only 4 months old. His father re-married Sarah Ann “Sallie” Waggoner 3 years later, on 28 April, 1907, when Jared was 3 1/2 years old. Nathan and Sallie had a son, Charles Wilson Smith on 15 Mar 1909, giving Jared a half-brother. On the 1910 Census, the 4 of them are living next door to Sallie’s mother in Moore County.

2 years later, Jared’s father, 27-year-old Nathan, tragically drowned while fishing in the Elk River, on 27 June, 1911. At only 7 years old, Jared had lost both of his biologic parents. Nathan was buried next to his first wife, Laura Jared, in Jared Cemetery, Lincoln County, TN. Sallie continued to raise Jared as her own, and he and Charlie certainly developed a strong brotherly bond. Sallie re-married 4 years later, marrying Nathan’s younger brother, John Edgar Smith, on 27 August, 1915, when he was 24 and she 26 years old.

Jared grew up in the Mulberry area, hunting and fishing, and playing basketball for his school. He isn’t found living with the family on the 1920 Census, likely having moved to Chattanooga. His family had continued to grow with the birth of three step-sisters, Gladys Christine(1916), Hulda Elizabeth (1918) and Estelle (1920). A 4th, Susie Ruth, came along in 1922. Another sister, Johnnie Jewel, born on New Year’s Eve, 1924, would tragically die just before the following Christmas and her first birthday, from an intestinal blockage.

Living in Chattanooga, his younger half-brother, Charlie, came to visit, as pictures of them at a young age on Lookout Mountain reflect.

On October 27, 1923, Jared married Mulberry native Ena Mahlan Pitts, in Lincoln County, Tennessee. They lived at initially at 5111 West 7th Street, before moving to 1802 Oak Street in Chattanooga. They had one child during their marriage, Evelyn Theresa Smith, Sallie and John Edgar’s first grandchild, born in Chattanooga on June 20, 1930. Another step brother, Douglas was born in 1927, followed by Joe Waggoner (1930), Barbara Ann (1932), and finally a last step brother, John Paul in 1935.

Records show that they lived in Chattanooga until at least 1936, where Jared worked as a station manager for People’s Oil and Standard Oil Companies, and as an agent for Met Life Insurance Company.

The 1940 census shows them having moved to Detroit, Michigan, living on Prentiss Street. Ena was a salesperson in a grocery store, and Jared a service man in a radio shop.

They moved about 1941 (assumption from above picture of Ena in Ecorse written on back in 1941) to 4475 Monroe Avenue in Ecorse, MI, a small suburb just south of Detroit, and almost directly on the shore of the Detroit River. Pictures show Jared dressed as a grocer, in front of “Smith’s Grocery,” certainly suggesting that they may have owned their own grocery store there at some point, although there was a large chain of grocery stores named “C. F. Smith Groceries,” owned by Charles F. Smith and headquartered in Detroit [NB Richard Baines, who knew the family, does recall them having a Grocery Store while living in Ecorse]. The 1942 and 1943 yearbooks from Ecorse High School pictures Evelyn as a 7th and 8th grader, so they were certainly in Ecorse by then.

John Paul left a wonderful 18 page Memoir of his growing up in Mulberry. He wasn’t born until 1935, so had little recollection of Ena, Jared and Evelyn while they lived in Tennessee. But he wrote that he recalls well that they visited from Detroit frequently, and how much Evelyn loved visiting her aunts and uncles who lived up on Crystal Ridge, above Mulberry. She loved the horses that Aunt Tommie (Smith – Nathan and John Edgar’s sister) and Uncle Roy Taylor owned. And that they loved to have her visit, and loved her very much.

On Wednesday, 11 June, 1947, Evelyn, then a senior at Ecorse High School, tragically drowned. A horrible accident, she was with 3 others in a small motor boat on the Detroit River, trying “to get a roller-coaster thrill.” They were using their small boat hoping to ride the wake of the SS Columbia, a large steamer that ferried people back and forth to an amusement park on Bob-lo Island. One of the waves capsized the boat, as the 400 passengers on the boat watched on in horror. The small motor boat started to sink from the weight of the 200 pound motor, at which point, they made a fateful decision to try and swim to small Mamajuba Island. Sheila Dupuis was the only one of them who made it, and witnessed the other 3 slip below the water. Evelyn’s body was not recovered for a week, on the 18th of June, 2 days before her 18th birthday.

John Paul wrote that when Jared called Sallie with the horrible news, it was a wet and gloomy day, made all the more dreary with the tragic news. Sallie felt an immediate need to inform the extended family who lived on Crystal Ridge. The Smith family never owned a vehicle, but she asked Mr. Ernest McGhee, a local store owner, to drive her up to Crystal Ridge, which he gladly did.

Once recovered, her body was returned to Mulberry, and she was buried in Mulberry Cemetery.

Years later, in an almost inconceivable but magnificent coincidence, one of her younger classmates at Ecorse High School, Richard “Dick” Baines, ended up in Murfreesboro, and attended First Cumberland Presbyterian Church, where Barbara Smith Rungee and daughter Teresa Anne Rungee Hayes attended. An article was published in the local Murfreesboro newspaper in 2009, mentioning their friend, Dick. He had grown up in Ecorse, Michigan, entered the Army, fought in Korea, then returned to Ecorse after the war, getting a job with Samsonite there. Samsonite moved a large part of their manufacturing to Murfreesboro in the 1960s, so he transferred with them, eventually becoming the plant manager. Although the plant would later close, the former employees continued to have reunions, which was the subject of the newspaper article in 2009. It mentioned that Dick was from Ecorse, which Barbara, reading the article, immediately recalled was where her niece had drowned. It doesn’t take much to imagine her surprise when she asked him if he had ever known Evelyn, and he responded that indeed he had, and recalled her and the unfortunate tragedy well. He recorded this memory:

Evelyn was a Senior in High School when I was a Freshman so we did not have any classes together. She was very pretty and popular and had a great personality. I know this because when I was a Freshman I went to a 10 cent (after school) sock hop in the gym. You left your shoes at the door and danced in your socks to music spun by a local disc jockey. I was, along with some of my frosh buddies, checking out the chicks. We were talking about how good looking Evelyn was when one of the guys dared me to go ask her to dance. Another said that he would give me nickel if I could get her to dance with me. I shuffled over to where she was talking to some of her friends and said, “Will you dance the next one with me?” I fully expected her to say, “Beat it kid,” but to my surprise and, terror, she said, “Sure!” Her friends were getting a big kick out of it and asking who her new boyfriend was. But she didn’t mind and she didn’t make fun of my lack of dancing skill.

Everyone was devastated by her death. When, at the Baccalaureate service, the Choir sang “Deep River,” there wasn’t a dry eye in the building. – Dick Baines, Murfreesboro, April 2019

At some point Jared and Ena moved back to the Mulberry area, eventually living in Huntsville, Alabama. [from 1967 – 68, we lived in Fayetteville, TN, while my father was in Vietnam. During that time, I recall one day being at Granny Smith’s house when Jared drove up, having been rabbit hunting. I can still vividly see in my memory the 5 or 6 rabbits laid out in the trunk of his car when he opened it. He asked me if I had a rabbit’s foot, telling me that they are good luck. Responding that I didn’t, he pulled out his hunting knife and cut the hind foot off of one of the rabbits. We went over to a hose and washed it off with some soap and water. This was when Granny’s house was heated only by fireplaces – 3 of them – one in the dining room, living room, and her bedroom. We laid the rabbit’s foot on the hearth next to the fire in the living room, and I turned it over and over, waiting for it to dry so that I could put it in my pocket. -Jim Rungee]

Jared died on December 28, 1969, in Huntsville, Alabama, at the age of 66, and was buried in Mulberry Cemetery, next to his daughter Evelyn.

Ena re-married Dr. Fred Hadley on 18 Oct 1973 . They moved back to Mulberry where they lived happily.

Dr. Hadley passed away in 1998.

Ena stayed on in Mulberry for a few years, finally moving to an assisted living facility in Fayetteville, Tennessee.

She passed away in 2004 and was buried in Mulberry Cemetery next to Jared and Evelyn. She was 97 years old.