McLEAN COUNTY HISTORY & GENEALOGY NEWS
By Euleen Rickard
Members of the museum were saddened this week by the passing of our benefactor, Mr. P. H. (Prentice) Smith. Mr. Smith died peacefully in his sleep on July 25, 2004, just one month before of his 97th birthday.
In July 2002 Mr. Smith donated the home where he and his wife, Hugh Bell, had lived since 1933 to the museum. His daughter, Mary Ann and her husband, along with members of the museum gave a party in the house honoring his 95th birthday on August 25th of that year. The house was filled with guests celebrating his birthday and expressing appreciation for his generous gift.
McLean County News reporter Clint Hadden wrote, “The future seems to be looking up for the museum. Since its formation it has been a transient organization, with the few documents and artifacts they’ve managed to collect stored in various locations.”
Mr. Hadden further wrote, “Mr. Smith’s life reflects much of the history of McLean County that his home now will preserve. Smith spent his early days hauling coal in an Owensboro wagon. He learned to drive with a car given to him by his father when he was in the eighth grade. He took his wife to Colorado for their honeymoon on the back of an Indian motorcycle in 1933. Much of his working life, he spent as an electrical inspector for the Rural Electric Association; the rest he spent selling Hotpoint appliances from a shop next door to the house.”
Mr. Smith, an avid airplane pilot, farmed in Guffie and had an airstrip on the farm that he called “Guffie International.” Sometimes he just flew around over the farm to see how things were but often he and Hugh Bell made longer trips to Michigan to visit daughter Mary Ann and her family and to other locations. He got his pilot’s license in 1955 when he was forty-eight years old and made his last flight the day before his eighty-fifth birthday.
Hugh Bell Smith was a well-known and especially liked schoolteacher. Many recall her as “the best teacher I ever had.” Her son-in-law, Dwight Stevenson, said, ”Miss Hugh would be delighted that her house will be maintained and preserved.” Several have visited the museum and recalled happy times visiting with the Smiths in the house, others have told of special favors in purchasing a radio or appliance from Mr. Smith’s shop. So many memories of times working and playing in the old house and shop.
July 2002 was the beginning of the future for the museum. Today the house and the shop are again filled with activity. Thanks to Mr. Smith the museum has a home and every day there progress. Visitors come from near and far. Recent visitors were: William and Laura Tanner, Richmond, Virginia; Norma Holland, Kansas City Missouri; Betty Johnson, Newark, Ohio; Nancy Hughes, Valparaiso, Indiana; Betty McKissick, Ft. Wayne, Indiana; Thomas and Jane Brown, Evansville, Indiana; Mr. & Mrs. Truman Jennings, Petersburg, Kentucky; Weldon and Jane Hunt, Lexington, Kentucky; Joan Cheryl Huff, Louisville, Kentucky; Clara Huntz, Patti Nalley Rhodes, Kristal and Hannah Sosh, Terry Smith and the Neals, Owensboro, Kentucky; Sallie Nalley Crowe, Utica, Kentucky, Floyd and Betty Ashby and Edna Bates, Sacramento, Jill Boyken, Beech Grove, Joan and Tammy Singleton and Hugh and Grace Ballantine, Calhoun.
Beside the front door of the house there is a bronze plaque with the inscription, “This house that was the home of Prentice and Hugh Bell Smith from 1930 to 2002 was donated to the McLean County History & Genealogy Museum in July 2002.” The historic house was a great gift from a very special man. His life and that of his beloved wife will live on in the life of the museum.