Family History: Francis (Frank) Harper Smith

FRANCIS HARPER SMITH

1868 - 1960

Francis (Frank) Harper Smith was born to Jane Fowles and Job Taylor Smith in Farmington, Utah on May 6, 1868.  He weighed 14 ¾ pounds!  Job’s mother was the second of four wives.  She earned their living making and selling baskets and as a seamstress, working from early morning until late at night.   She got typhoid fever soon after Frank’s birth so she and her children moved to Salt Lake City (where Job and wife Adelaide lived), eventually moving next to the Preece family home.  Frank went to the Preece home each morning to get a pint of milk for his mother, and there as a boy met his sweetheart Eunice Fuller.   Frank recalls leaving seeing her aged 6 or 7 standing in the doorway  “I still can see that vision of loveliness.  Eunice, my darling, my sweetheart, how I loved you then and always.”  At age 8 she gave Frank her picture which he treasured.

Frank was only five when he began to sing.  He and four other boys sang together under the training of Prof. Evan Stephens.  They performed in select homes, parties and concerts.  Frank sang opera solos in two concerts at the Salt Lake Theatre.  He also eventually sang with the Tabernacle Choir and played the organ for his ward.  Frank enjoyed sports and excelled in foot racing.  He earned tickets for the weekly dances by cleaning the school.  

Frank was lonesome as a boy because his mother and sister Lucy worked at the store from 7 am to 8 or 9 pm.  The others were older and seldom at home.  Frank remembers his mother bringing sewing home from the store nightly to finish before the next day: “I oft times wondered if she ever slept.”    On Saturday Frank worked as a delivery boy for the butcher from 9 am to 9 or 10 pm.  One summer he worked delivering ice.  At age 11 Frank worked a summer for his newly married sister, Lucy.  He hauled water by hand to water a newly planted orchard and planted a garden of corn and potatoes (“I do not recall having any help with either”.)  He also helped dig a 40 foot well and a cellar.  At 15 his father took him into his basket shop where he worked weaving willows into baskets.  “…the work was not to my liking….I never made a basket since that time.”  

Attending the Deseret University (now the U of U), Frank paid tuition of $10 for each ten weeks and took business courses.   He finished his course and was hired at ZCMI.  Until he married Frank gave his mother half his wages which were used to build her a four room home.  Frank married Eunice (16) on August 24, 1888 in the Salt Lake Endowment House.   They moved in with his mother while Frank built a two room house at the rear of his mother’s home.  Not long afterward, Frank found his mother lying between the houses having suffered a stroke.  She died a short time later.  Frank and Eunice had a son, Leo, who weighed only 3 ½ pounds.  Two years later Nellie was born, a beautiful and healthy baby.  She was awarded first prize ($20 gold piece) at the Utah State Fair in the baby contest.   Frank quit ZCMI in 1890 and with a wagon they moved to Bear Lake, Idaho to make a home on 132 acres traded from his brother Henry.  They arrived June 2^nd surprised to find 3 inches of snow on the ground.  Frank hauled timber and built a home the next spring with the help of Uncle George and neighbors.  He was also in charge of building a new chapel based on plans he drew (“considered the most beautiful one in the Bear Lake County.”)  Frank was born December 31, 1892 or January 1, 1893 (“we were never quite sure”).  During each winter Frank cut and traded lumber for food and clothing.  He also hunted for meat and did various other jobs to supplement their farming income, including building on a chapel in Montpelier.  

Eunice had studied piano and acted as accompanist when Frank sang or directed choirs.  Frank taught organ, guitar, mandolin and vocal lessons.  There were 32 young people coming weekly for instruction and to sing in a choir.  On March 2, 1895 baby Evan was born in the midst of a blizzard.  “The hired girl hung quilts around mother’s bed to keep the snow off.”  After three years in Idaho they sold the ranch for $900 and loaded their wagons for Ashley Valley following the old Oregon trail, an arduous and dangerous journey.  Once in the Ashley Valley, Frank put the headgate on the Lake Fork stream to fill Dry Gulch canal and worked on the Ashley Creek headgates.  He also built many homes, churches, schools, a hospital,and the tower of the Vernal Tabernacle, as well as their own home in Maeser.  (A detailed listing is given in Frank’ “Recollections”.)   The family continued to grow, with the births of the last six (of 12) attended by physicians.   Their home, which had been built bit by bit, burned down.  When the Uintah Reservation was opened for settlement the family moved to a 160 acre tract, though Frank was often away building so Eunice did most of the homesteading.  Frank believed in hard work, and once on being told by a doctor that he must give up physical labor for a year or more to get well, he told the doctor, “I have a family to support and I won’t quite on the job.  If I cannot work and live, I will work and die.”   He finally built their lovely brick home in Maeser, completing it in 1915.  His children recorded many fond memories of their father.

 Eunice’s health declined and she died March 6, 1933 in daughter Mazie’s home.  Frank married Annie Goddard, a friend of his youth.  They were married nine years, most of which time she was ill.  After Annie Goddard’s death in 1944, he married Verna Young Mitchell, a granddaughter of Brigham Young.  They were married in the home of George and Annie Johnstun in Provo.  In 1948 Frank built six homes in Salt Lake City and worked on a duplex.

Francis Harper Smith died at Lola’s home after several days’ illness on March 4, 1960 at age 92.  His funeral was held in the Maeser Chapel which he built as construction foreman 31 years before.  

Children of Frank and Eunice Smith:

Leo (1889-1957); Nellie (1891 – 1973); Frank (1893 – 1957); Evan (1895 – 1966); Annie (1897 - 1977); Mazie (1899 -  1988); Lola (1902 – 1972); Lucy (1904 - 1991); Marvin (1908 – 1961);  Eunice (1910- 2001); Milton Rae (1914- 1994); Shirley (1916 - 1983).

FRANCIS HARPER SMITH – Summary history by Merikay Smith, December 2010

Based on “Recollections of My Long and Busy Life,” Francis Harper Smith, 9 pages; “Mother:  Eunice Elizabeth Fuller Smith” 22 pages;  “My Father – Frank H. Smith” Mazie S. Christensen, 6 pages.

Thanks to Merikay Haws Smith for researching, writing, and sharing this history.