Herman Channing Smith 1888 - 1918

SMITH, STOUT, PETERSON, MCSWEENY

Posted By: A.M.W. (email)
Date: 3/16/2006 at 22:21:25

Mt. Pleasant Weekly 5/28/1919

The remains of Mr. Herman Channing Smith, son of Jasper and Deborah (Stout) Smith, who died at Gordon Nebraska, October 22, 1918, were brought here for burial last week. His family is well known in this section of Iowa though he was born in Milo, Iowa October 4, 1888. He grew to manhood at Milo and Florence, Iowa. He was a graduate of the Omaha, Nebraska high school and also graduated in pharmacy from the Creighton School of Pharmacy in 1908. He founded the Smith Drug Company of Ainsworth, Nebraska which he operated until a few months prior to his demise. When the influenza epidemic struck that part of Nebraska where he resided, it laid low all the druggists of the neighboring city of Gordon, and he went there to help on an emergency call. He worked day and night, spending his strength to help save others, until the dread disease laid its hand on him. He was sick for only a short time, not being able to overcome the combined attacks of pneumonia and influenza. His mother, Mrs. Deborah Stout Smith died in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa November 19, 1918, a few weeks after his departure. His remains were brought here tha they might repose beside her in beautiful Forest Home Cemetery.

The deceased had resided in Ainsworth about twelve years. There, on June 15, 1913, he and Miss Lida Peterson were joined in marriage. She grieves the loss of an excellent husband. Besides his wife, he leaves to mourn, his father, well and favorably known here, two brothers, Dr. H. C. Smith, Glendale, California and Edward Jasper Smith, Marshalltown, Iowa, one sister, Mrs. Bertha McSweeny, Birmingham, Alabama, and many other relatives and close friends. He had and held the love and esteem of them all for he was worthy. He was a man of friendly disposition, faithful and true, and a good citizen interested in the things that make for progress and development.

Funeral services were held in Ainsworth on the Friday afternoon following his decease. They were conducted by Rev. O. O. Smith, D.D., pastor of the First Congregational Church of Fremont, Nebraska. The remains were brought to Mt. Pleasant on May 14th to Crane’s Undertaking parlors, and short funeral services, conducted at the grave by Frank E. Weston, pastor of the First Baptists Church were held on the morning of the fifteenth.