James William Smith

Info from Ancestry.com (Karen Farmer's Kin)

ID:1004

He was a miner, a very good dancer. His hobby was making fishing nets. He always sat in the basement & whistled while he split kindling.

He was sick for 2 weeks before he died. Possibly polio but more likely spinal meningitis. He kept "mining" in his bedclothes thinking he was piling coal. When he died the doctor told Susie to seal the room & not go in til the body was cold. James best friend insisted on seeing the body & he died of the same thing within 2 weeks. Susie never caught whatever it was. He worked in the Trenton Steel Mill during the war (WW1).

Mr. McKenzie from Jarvie, Alberta worked there at the same time (he was a friend of the Marshall family (Carol, James, Karen while they lived in Jarvie.

James also worked in the Drummon mine in Westville, a coal mine.

The photo of James with a horse was taken about 1919. The horse's name was Mona. The 1st car he owned was a 1919 or 1920 4 cylinder open car.

He was not as tall as his son James Smith Jnr.