The following is the entire text:
Robert H. Smith
Robert H. Smith was a man of unyielding character, very decided in his advocacy of what he believed to be right, and much in earnest in supporting all those minor points which hedge about the maintaining of our testimonies. He was noted for his regularity in observing the meeting hour, trying to have his watch just right, and no matter how many Friends would pass along before that time, he would not start until the appointed minute. He said that it was just as much a failure in observing the hour to be there before hand, as to be behind time. And if it were the custom to enter into common conversation before entering the meeting house, was he not correct? Elizabeth Smith was a much valued minister, one whom her descendants could look back to with filial respect, and call her their good grandmother.
There were seven sons in the family. It is to be imagined that they had many boyish freaks; what one did not think of, another did in the way of mischief; yet such were the careful restraints exercised over them, that most of them early in their mature life became solid Friends. Old age found them widely scattered, but when their father died, which was during the first Yearly Meeting at Stillwater in 1878, they were all present, and took their turns in watching by their father’s bedside, while the rest attended meeting. Some of them were of lofty stature, as a Friend from Philadelphia speaks of going to see Robert Smith’s forty-two feet of boys. There were only two sisters; one of them died young; Rebecca the elder sister married Joseph Cowgill, both she and her husband were valued Elders later. The mother survived the father in feeble health only a few years, though in that time she had a minute and attended Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. |
