Wood-Smith Family, Papers, 1864-1987 (C3857)

5.2 linear feet, 5 digital video discs, 1 audio tape

INTRODUCTION

Correspondence, scrapbooks, newspaper articles, photographs and films of two Missouri families with roots in Jasper and Pike counties. Guy M. Wood was First Associate City Counsellor for the city of St. Louis in the early 1930s. Roy G. Smith served nearly fifty years with the Young Men's Christian Association in the Philippines, Peru, and the United States.

DONOR INFORMATION

The Wood-Smith Family Papers were donated to the University of Missouri by Roy Smith on 11 October 1984 (Accession No. 4587). Additions were made periodically over the years from 1985 to 1987. Complete accession information can be found in the collection's information folder.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Guy Melvin Wood was born and raised in Pike County, Missouri, the only child of George Fountain and Melzena (Boyd) Wood. A 1908 graduate of Pike College, Bowling Green, Guy married Tressa Wright in 1912 while studying law. The next year a daughter was born, Emory IloGene, and the family soon moved from Bowling Green to the St. Louis suburb of University City. In 1926 a son was born, Guy M. Wood Jr. Shortly thereafter, Guy Sr. was appointed First Associate City Counsellor for St. Louis. In 1937 Tressa Wright-Wood committed suicide and, a year later, Guy Wood married Virginia Stuart. During and after World War II, Guy Sr. worked as an attorney for the Army Corps of Engineers and taught occasional evening classes in business law at Washington University, St. Louis. In 1951 Guy Sr. retired to California for health reasons. He returned to Bowling Green, Missouri, in 1955 and died in 1956.

Roy Glenn Smith was born 20 January 1911 in Stotts City, Missouri, and raised on a farm near Sarcoxie. While earning a bachelor's degree in social studies at the University of Missouri he became involved in the Student Y.M.C.A. and served one term as president of that organization. After graduating in 1933 he spent ten years with the St. Louis "Y" as General Program Secretary of the Downtown Association. In December 1937 he married IloGene Wood, a 1933 music graduate of William Woods College, Fulton, Missouri. They had two daughters, Pat and Carol, before Roy entered the Navy as a Lieutenant in 1943.

In 1945 Roy returned to active duty with the Y.M.C.A., this time in the International Division, being sent with his family to the Philippines from 1946-1951, where he was to help rebuild the "Y" movement which had been physically and spiritually destroyed in World War II. After a year of touring the U.S. to solicit support for the International Y.M.C.A., Roy and his family, in 1952, were again sent overseas to Lima, Peru. In the twenty years the Smiths spent in South America a third daughter, Sallie, was born and the two older daughters returned to the States to attend the University of Missouri, marry, and begin families of their own.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith retired to the United States in 1972 when Sallie began studies at Christian College, Columbia, Missouri, and in 1973 Roy and IloGene moved to Columbia. Although no longer a part of the daily workings of the "Y," Smith remains active in the International Association of Retired Directors of the Y.M.C.A., and continues guidance and support work through the Missouri United Methodist Church in Columbia, Missouri.

Mrs. Smith was diagnosed in 1983 with Alzheimer's Disease. After seven years of in-home health care, supplied mostly by Mr. Smith, she died in 1990.

SCOPE AND CONTENT

A rich source of everyday family life in late 19th- and 20th-century white America, the collection is arranged into four series: the SMITH FAMILY; the Y.M.C.A.; the WOOD FAMILY; and MISCELLANEOUS. Scrapbooks retain their original order, but have been photocopied and broken down into sequential folders for preservation and easier handling. Most of the material from the SMITH FAMILY series concerns the travels and daily life of the Roy G. Smith family as Roy becomes first, a U.S. Navy captain, then an International Y.M.C.A. secretary, and finally a mid-Missouri retiree. This series is divided into four subseries: correspondence, scrapbooks, photographs, and miscellaneous.

IloGene accompanied her husband, with their two young daughters, to Virginia Beach, Virginia, for his naval training in early 1944, and wrote home to her father and step-mother nearly ever day for five months. The correspondence then picks up in 1946, when IloGene again begins writing almost daily letters from her home in Columbia, Missouri, to her husband in the Philippine Islands. Topics include IloGene's work as a secretary at Stephen's College, Columbia, preparations for the voyage to the Philippines, and the insurmountable problems of trying to buy a car so soon after World War II. Once she and their two daughters join Roy in the "P.I.," her letters continue unabated to her family back in Missouri. Included are observations on life in the post-war islands, reports on travel, church and volunteer work, shortages, and daily life. Also included are carbon copies of letters from Guy Wood Sr. to IloGene, with reports on health, family, and St. Louis happenings.

In 1952 the family moved to Lima, Peru, and the direction of the correspondence changed. Instead of letters from IloGene to the States, this section is made up of correspondence, dating from 1956 to 1972, mostly from the Smith daughters attending college at the University of Missouri to their parents in South America. Subjects discussed in these letters include dating, student life, career choices, dance, weddings, and pregnancy. Most of this section is made up of U.S. Air Mail stationery, some of which has been damaged by water and mold and is difficult to read.

Very few letters survive from the 1970s, but the 1980s once again provide detailed accounts of the workings of the modern family. Correspondence is primarily from the Smith daughters and Jewell (Smith) Flaxbeard, Roy's sister. Topics range from daughter Carol's work as a high school guidance counselor near Kansas City, Missouri, to grandson Brian's church youth-group activities, to nephew Jon Koncak's professional basketball career.

Throughout his retirement years Roy Smith helped plan and emcee various reunions and memorial services for his high school class of 1929. Correspondence concerns preparations for these meetings; including information gathering, rough drafts of speeches, program schedules, and travel itineraries.

In 1983 IloGene Smith was diagnosed as having Alzheimer's Disease and a series of newsletters from national and local organizations detail efforts to educate family members and the public at large about this degenerative brain disorder. Cards and letters from friends and family were put into three "birthday scrapbooks" by Roy Smith for IloGene's 71st birthday in November 1984, providing an orderly, easy-to-handle method of helping IloGene remember people and places the couple had known. They have been disassembled and placed into folders for conservation purposes. Also included in the correspondence are letters and notes dealing with Roy Smith's work as Parish Visitor for Columbia's Missouri United Methodist Church.

Scrapbooks include newspaper stories about the Smiths, from Roy's Navy days to Sallie Smith's brief career on a Peruvian television variety show in the late 1960s. There are relatively few photographs, mostly portraits of Roy Smith and snapshots of baby Sallie and the grandchildren. Miscellaneous material in this series contains family genealogies.

The Y.M.C.A. series is divided into four subseries: correspondence, scrapbooks, photographs, and miscellaneous. Correspondence begins in 1946 with reports from Roy Smith and others on the physical and organizational state of the "Y" in the post-war Philippines, and with discussions about materials needed from the U.S., the effects of local politics on the "Y" movement, and the Y.M.C.A.'s involvement in gaining the release of Japanese war prisoners from Philippine prisons on moral and religious grounds. Correspondence from the Peru years (1952-1972) centers primarily on Roy Smith's speaking engagements at Y's and other service and youth groups in the U.S., and includes letters of thanks and congratulations. Correspondence from 1972 and 1973 concerns Roy Smith's retirement from the Y.M.C.A., again with letters of thanks and congratulations. The rest of the 1970s and 1980s correspondence is with the International Division of Retirement, and on subjects touching on regional conferences, the effects of 1980s tax reform on "Y" pensions, and the death of old co-workers.

Scrapbooks cover the years 1937-1972 and consist of newspaper articles, Y.M.C.A. pamphlets, and organizational newsletters. A diary kept by Roy Smith lists personal goals and topics for speeches and discussions for the years 1937-1941. Topics covered in the early scrapbooks provide a detailed account of St. Louis "Y" activities in the late 1930s and early 1940s, including travelogues, theatrical presentations, contemporary political discussions, and various sports competitions sponsored by the "Y." Scrapbooks from the Philippine years highlight the rebuilding of "Y" facilities throughout the Islands, Philippine politics, and summer camps sponsored for city children. The period 1951-1972 is made up mostly of newspaper articles reporting numerous speeches and presentations made by Roy Smith on his return trips to the United States. One audio tape contains two speeches given in November 1951 by Roy Smith in Hannibal, Missouri.

Photographs are arranged chronologically, then subdivided into groups, so that all the Philippine Y.M.C.A. shots remain together, and all the Peru shots are together. Many of these pictures are duplicates of those used for Y.M.C.A. publicity purposes in various regions. Very few of the individual people within these photographs are identified.

Photographs pertaining to the Philippine "Y" movement include a large number of official group portraits for various regional conferences as well as some snapshots of Y.M.C.A. directors' meetings, basketball games, and Y.M.C.A. buildings. Peru "Y" pictures contain few official group portraits, but instead concentrate on publicity shots of "Y" speakers, awards presentations, summer camps, and sporting events.

Included in this photograph subseries are ten color silent home movies taken in the Philippines and the Far East, nine of which were used by the Smiths in speeches soliciting support from the United States for the Y's international programs. These include footage of war damage in the Islands, the rice, lumber, and pineapple industries of the Far East and South Pacific, and some spectacular night shots of an erupting volcano, as well as many of the native customs and trades. The tenth reel contains a collection of over- and under-exposed outtakes and some brief shots of the family. The films have been transferred onto five digital video discs for preservation purposes.

The series concludes with a run of International Association of Retired Directors Old Guard newsletters from the 1970s and 1980s.

The WOOD FAMILY series is also divided into four subseries: correspondence, scrapbooks, photographs, and miscellaneous. The correspondence begins with U.S. Union Army reports dated 1864 concerning suits filed by farmers for lost cotton and ends with letters of condolence upon the death of Guy M. Wood in 1956. Included are love letters written in the 1870s from George F. Wood to his fiancee, Melzena Boyd, while he was away at college in southern Illinois, correspondence concerning Guy Wood's involvement with the Sons of the American Revolution, and notes to Guy Wood Jr. from two of his college girlfriends.

Several scrapbooks detail the comings and goings of members of the Wright and Wood families, with marriage announcements, society page quips and obituaries. The compiler of these scrapbooks is unknown. Notices and news stories about both families are found in the same books, often on the same page, and often without regard to chronology.

Hundreds of photographic portraits and snapshots from the turn of the century provide an excellent review of men's, women's, and children's fashions in Missouri, including hats, clothes, hairstyles, and whiskers. Most of the people in these photographs are unidentified.

Miscellaneous material for this series includes Wood family trees, a child's pen and ink sketches from the turn of the century, copies of the college magazines Echoes From the Woods (William Woods College, Fulton, Missouri) and the Washington University Cub (Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri), and material concerning Guy Wood Jr.'s participation in 1942's Missouri Boys' State and a 1947 World Student Service trip to France.

The MISCELLANEOUS series, arranged alphabetically by type of material, is made up of postcards from around the world, various church service programs, obituaries of family friends, Wood family recipes from the 1920s, and cards and letters addressed to Roy Smith's uncle, Ray Baird, who was also active in social work with youths.

FOLDER LIST

Smith Family Series

f. 1-2Correspondence, Roy Smith, 1929-1943
f. 3-26Correspondence, 1944-1949
f. 27-34Correspondence, 1950-1959
f. 35-54Correspondence, 1960-1969
f. 55-62Correspondence, 1970-1978
f. 63-66Correspondence, 1979-Nov 1984
f. 67-78Correspondence, Nov-Dec 1984
f. 79-94Correspondence, 1985-1986
f. 95-97Correspondence, n.d.
f. 98-100Photographs, 1911-1972
f. 101-114Scrapbooks, 1943-1986
f. 115-129Miscellaneous, 1936-1956

Y.M.C.A. Series

f. 130-133Correspondence, 1946-1949
f. 134-140Correspondence, 1950-1951
f. 141Correspondence, 1952-1965
f. 142-144Correspondence, 1973
f. 145-149Correspondence, 1980-1986
f. 150Correspondence, n.d.
f. 151-155Scrapbooks, 1933-1941
f. 156-163Scrapbooks, 1946-1951
f. 164-167Scrapbooks, 1950s
f. 168-174Photographs, 1946-1951
f. 175-183Photographs, 1952-1972
f. 184Home movies
r. 1Agriculture and Industry in the Philippines
r. 2Asia
r. 3Asia and the South Pacific
r. 4Chop Suey
r. 5The Philippines' Early History
r. 6The Philippines After World War II
r. 7Y.M.C.A. in Asia and the Pacific
r. 8-10Y.M.C.A. in the Philippines
f. 185-191Y.M.C.A. Old Guard News, 1977-1987
f. 192-197Miscellaneous

Wood Family Series

f. 198Correspondence, 1864
f. 199-199aCorrespondence, 1881-1884
f. 200-201Correspondence, 1914-1937
f. 202-206Correspondence, 1940-1949
f. 207-216Correspondence, 1950-1956
f. 217Scrapbook, 1880s-1910s
f. 218-220Scrapbook, 1902-1937
f. 221-222Scrapbook, 1916-1931
f. 223-225Scrapbook, 1930s
f. 226-227Scrapbook, 1880s-1930s
f. 228Photographs, 1860s-1870s
f. 229-231Photographs, 1880s
f. 232-233Photographs, c. 1900
f. 234Photographs, Univ. of Mo., 1900s
f. 235Photographs, 1900s
f. 236-239Photographs, 1910s
f. 240-245Photographs, 1920s
f. 246Photographs, 1920s-1930s
f. 247-249Photographs, 1930-1933
f. 250Photographs, 1930s-1940s
f. 251Photographs, 1950s
f. 252-253Photographs, n.d.
f. 254IloGene Wood, D.A.R. Application
f. 255Guy Wood Jr., S.A.R. Application
f. 256Guy Wood Sr., S.A.R. Application
f. 257-258Guy Wood Sr., S.A.R. Annual reports
f. 259Guy Wood Sr., S.A.R. Annual reports and speeches
f. 260Guy Wood Sr., S.A.R. Speech
f. 261St. Louis pamphlets
f. 262-264Genealogy
f. 265Drawings
f. 266Miscellaneous
f. 267IloGene Wood, High school papers
f. 268IloGene Wood, College papers
f. 269Echoes from the Woods, 1932-1937
f. 270Guy Wood Jr., Baby book
f. 271-275Guy Wood Jr., Missouri Boys State, 1942
f. 276Guy Wood Jr., Washington University papers
f. 277-278Guy Wood Jr., Washington University Cub
f. 279-284Guy Wood Jr., Miscellaneous

Miscellaneous Series

f. 285-293Miscellaneous, A-P
f. 294-297Postcards
f. 298-301Miscellaneous, Programs
f. 302-304Recipes
f. 305-306Miscellaneous, S-W

INDEX TERMS

These index terms are the subjects, people, places, etc. under which this collection is listed in all available indexes at The State Historical Society of Missouri-Columbia. If you are interested in a specific index term, please contact the reference staff.