SPOTLIGHT ON MINNIE WESTMORELAND SMITH
By: Karen WeHunt Harden, Contributing Writer | wharden1950@gmail.com
Who is this endearing colorful character, this humorous storyteller, a walking talking encyclopedia (abridged)?
Minnie Westmoreland Smith will be eighty-three years old in June. She had two older brothers and four younger brothers. As a young girl, her mother, Edna said, “I never wanted but two children, and I wanted them to be boys.” When Minnie came along she “failed to thrive” for many reasons. After Minnie, four more boys were born. “Mama had a 7th grade education and her Daddy made her quit school to farm because she could get the mules and horses to plow straight.” Later on, their Mama was a weaver and went back to work as soon as possible after each boy was born. As Minnie grew, “Mama started taking me to town all dressed up. My doll collection actually belonged to Mama. She wouldn’t let me do much because I was a girl, except she let me be in school plays, dramas, and sing in choirs.”
Minnie raised Baby Bill until she went off to Winthrop. “I weighed ninety-five pounds and was scared to death I could not make it in college.” Mama prided herself in “Giving her children all the education they could take.” Mama immersed herself in our genealogy and we were very proud of her research. She introduced everyone as cousin so and so.
Minnie’s favorite time to remember was Christmas. “Mama would decorate a freshly cut tree with ivory soap snow and we would finish decorating with Inge-Glas ornaments and drape fragrant branches across the mantle.”
Her scarcest times were when she heard her Mama retell the hail storm of August, 1929 story. Quoting Edna, “It started as we were playing in the street. We hurried inside to weather the storm. Later Pa loaded the family up to go see where the crops had been beaten down and the livestock was killed or blinded.
he golf ball size hail was so fierce it broke out all the windows in the Mills Mill Village.” Millie said, “Every time a bad cloud came up, Mama freaked out. She had us be quiet and sit down until it passed. Mama always included in her story, “W. B. Westmoreland lost his fortune because he lost his all crops and he had to pay for the leased horses and mules that were destroyed.” Minnie said, “The good that came out of it was the mill’s carpenters installed screens and storm doors for all the houses in the mill village.”
Minnie is most proud of “Still being above ground, living in my own home, and doing what I want to do even though my short-term memory is not as good as my long-term memory. I went into a line of work pioneering Special Education in the 1960s and taught school for thirty years. I found the good in my students – their talent and encouraged them on their level even if I had to lay my head down on a student’s desk with them” to get and keep their attention. The greatest lesson she learned was through observation. She had a student to ask, “Why do you get so upset about every fart and fizzle?” Minnie learned “Life is too short to keep your panties in a wad.”
The saddest time in her life began when her husband, Gerald, developed Alzheimer’s. She stopped singing and after retiring in 1995, she virtually stopped talking. Before this, her voice was strong and has now faded. Minnie is understandable because she practices and exercises her voice by saying vowels distinctly and dramatically.
Her hobbies include reading and following the clean comedians on Dry Bar Comedy from Salt Lake City, Utah. She is looking forward to “Watching as her great-great nephew, Rylan, grows up.”
Minnie’s advice to young people is, “Don’t join in with the crowd. They will lead you astray. Pay attention and do your best. Take your time falling in love and have lots of similar goals in common.”
Minnie’s greatest fear is to be buried alive – to have dirt on her face. As a child, her brothers and other boys tormented her by trying to smother her. She has pre-paid her cremation and wishes her ashes to be put in a zip bag and placed into Baby Bill’s grave.
Minnie is open, warm, amusing, has a quick wit, and a clear sharp mind. She has a remarkable recall of people’s names and our local history. She wants to be remembered as a “colorful character” which will be easy for all who know and love her.
Author: Tracy Sanders
