Born in 1890 in Laclede County, Missouri, William Roy Smothers and his siblings were the first generation of our Smothers family to live and work almost entirely away from agriculture.  Called Roy by friends and family, he may also have had the nickname "Shorty."  His parents, John F. and Clemma Furr Smothers, were farmers in Laclede County for the first ten to twenty years of their marriage.  But, by the late 1890's, while Roy was still a boy, John and Clemma had left their farm and moved the family west to the mining town of Joplin, Missouri.  The availability of jobs, money, and a more modern urban lifestyle undoubtedly played a significant role in luring the Smothers family to Joplin.  The 1900 census lists John "Frank" Smothers in Joplin, employed as a carpenter.  This seems to have been John's trade for the remainder of his life, as it is his given occupation in the 1910 and 1920 census records.  Two of John's sons also pursued lifelong careers in the lumber and carpentry trades.

While growing up in Missouri, Roy received some formal schooling.  He could read and write as an adult, as could his father and his brothers and sisters;  but, Roy's education likely was limited to what we now call primary school.  It would be the next Smothers generation, such as Roy's son Leroy, who would be the first to extend their education to high school and college.

Roy came from a moderately large family for his day.  He had two older brothers, two older sisters, and one younger sister who lived to adulthood.  There also were four siblings who died in early childhood.  Roy's oldest brother, Walter C. Smothers, contracted consumption (tuberculosis) as a young man and died at age 27 in Tempe, Arizona, where he had gone to improve his health.  Walter, who was working as a cigar maker in Joplin in 1900, had married a preacher's daughter, Elizabeth "Lizzie" Adkisson, about three years before his death.  They had no children.  After Walter's death in 1903, Lizzie  seems to have lived for several years in Joplin with her in-laws, John and Clemma Smothers.  She later married Walter's brother, Clarence, and helped raise his son from his first marriage; but, Lizzie Adkisson Smothers herself apparently never had any children of her own.

Roy's other older brother, Clarence Franklin Smothers, clearly was the adventurous "character" in the Smothers family.  Clarence was slender and very tall, well over six feet, and within the family was usually called by his nickname "Slim."  While still a very young man, probably between the years 1900-1904, Clarence left Joplin, Missouri, and headed for California.  Family lore has it that Clarence took his brother Roy with him, and that they both worked at the lumber mills located in the northern California mountains.  They apparently caused considerable worry among their family back in Missouri.  Eventually, Roy's older sister, Maude Allie Smothers, got fed up with the situation.  She traveled alone to California by train, located Clarence and Roy, and brought them home to Missouri...or at least she brought Roy back.  It is entirely unclear whether Clarence ever returned to Missouri.  The 1910 census shows he was then living in Weed Village, Siskiyou County, California, with his first wife, Mary Beasley, and their son Clarence F. Smothers, Jr., who was born 1904 in Los Angeles, California.

When Clarence and Roy left Missouri on their little adventure to California, it is very possible that they brought along with them Mary Beasley Houk, wife of Solomon Houk of Joplin.  What is known for certain is that Mary left her husband and four children in the early 1900's to be with Clarence Smothers, who apparently was a boarder in the Houk home, and who she would later marry.  Mary Beasley Smothers had just one child with Clarence, the above mentioned Clarence, Jr.  She later died of uterine cancer in 1918 in Los Angeles at the age of 54.  Mary was 18 years older than Clarence, Sr., and is said to have been musically gifted as a singer.  Their son, Clarence, Jr., now deceased, became a musician in his early adulthood, but later in life worked in the construction trade and as an office manager.  His living descendants are now in California, Illinois, and Maryland.  Clarence, Sr., worked most if not all his life in the lumber industry, starting with his little circa 1900 adventure to California with brother Roy.  After his wife Mary's death in 1918, Clarence married his brother Walter's widow, Lizzie Adkisson Smothers, and they had a long and presumably happy life together.  Clarence Smothers, Sr., who this author knew as "Uncle Slim," died 1971 at age 88 in Butte County, California.

Roy's oldest sister, Maud Allie, was married in 1912 in Missouri to Claude Columbus McKee.  They lived in Missouri and Oklahoma, and had two sons, Claude H. and Roy W. McKee.  Maud died fairly young in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, in 1921 at age 41.  Some of Maud's descendants are now found living in Texas.  Roy's next older sister, Mary Smothers, married Warren Henry Zoller in Joplin in 1904.  Mary, like her sister Maud, died relatively young in 1943 at age 56 in California.  Mary and Warren had three sons: Warren S., Claude R., and John H. Zoller, with descendants now living in California.  The baby sister of the family, Irene Roberta Smothers, was married somewhat late in life at age 31 to Fred Valentine Paulus.  Irene lived a long life, dying in 1986 at age 86 in Los Angeles County, California.  Unfortunately, Irene was totally blind for at least the last 25 years or so of her life.  Her only child, son Richard Wayne Paulus, took care of Irene after her husband died in 1963.  Richard, who worked in southern California as an electronics and aerospace technician, and smoked cigarettes, died in 1984 at age 49 of lung cancer, unmarried and without children.

Unlike his brother Clarence, Roy Smothers was not particularly tall in stature, to put it politely.  His family and relatives, who seemed to have loved teasing nicknames, are thought to have called him "Shorty" as a young man.  I knew him only as Roy (and grandpa).  Roy moved from Joplin, Missouri, to southern California about 1914-15 with his parents, John and Clemma Smothers, and his sister, Irene.  In 1917, during World War I, Roy was drafted into the U.S. Army and sent to France.  Letters written while in France by Roy to his sister Mary Smothers Zoller survive in the possession of Mary's grandson, Dave Zoller, of California.  It is not known what Army unit Roy served with, where in France he stayed, or whether or not he was involved in actual combat.  He returned safely after the war in 1918, apparently uninjured.

Roy finally settled down and  was married at age 31 in 1922 to Minnie Nora "Jean" Franklin.  They were married in Los Angeles County, California, and lived there for the rest of their days, mostly in the town of Maywood, which is located just a few miles south of the City of Los Angeles.  She never went by her given names Minnie or Nora, at least not as an adult, but was always called "Jean" by her friends and family.  It is not known how or exactly when Roy and Jean first met, but it most likely occurred in southern California after Roy was discharged from the Army.

Jean Franklin was born 19 November 1899 in the town of Agricola, Coffee County, Kansas, near her parent's farm.  (Agricola is now an abandoned Kansas "ghost" town.)  Third eldest of nine children, Jean was the daughter of Alvin Peter Franklin of Kansas and Cora Bell Scranton of Illinois.  Jean grew up in rural Kansas and Oklahoma, living the rugged life of a farmer's daughter.  Her father, Alvin, died a young man of 46 in 1916.  Family lore has it that Jean was sent to southern California not long after her father's death to live with one of her mother's sisters, either Beatrice Scranton Hart or Ruby Scranton Hamilton, who had become well-to-do through a real estate business.  Jean's mother, Cora, was remarried about 1916-20 to Alvin's uncle, James Benjamin Franklin, who helped her raise her younger children. Cora remained in Oklahoma until her death in 1930.  Many, but not all of Alvin and Cora Franklin's children eventually moved from Oklahoma to California to overcome the hard economic times of the1920's and 1930's.  Roy and Jean Franklin Smothers played a major role in bringing Jean's siblings to California and finding jobs for them, largely in the lumber and carpentry trade that Roy worked in.  The hard experiences of Jean and her brothers and sisters in their early adulthood made for a very tightly knit family group, who all stayed in close contact with each other throughout their lives.

Roy and Jean had just one child, a son, Leroy Smothers, who was born 4 February 1923 in Huntington Park, Los Angeles County, California.  Within a few years after Leroy's birth, Roy and Jean bought a two-bedroom home in the then newly formed town of Maywood, located just south of the City of Los Angeles.  They spent the rest of their lives in that home.  Son Leroy graduated from high school about 1941, and in 1943 he enlisted in the U. S. Army and served in Army Air Corps in Europe at the end of World War II.  After his military discharge in 1946, Leroy attended Compton College and the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, where he obtained a Bachelor's degree in 1950 (engineering).  After college, Leroy married Isabella Elizabeth "Elly" Moessner, who he had met and courted while stationed in Germany, and they had two children, William Karl and Karen Maria Smothers.

Roy Smothers worked nearly all his life as a cabinet maker and carpenter, finally retiring in the early 1960's.  He died 7 November 1969 in hospital in Lynwood, Los Angeles County, California, age 78.  His wife Jean Franklin Smothers, who worked for many years at a candy factory near Maywood, died 14 August 1976 in Lynwood, age 76.  Both are buried next to each other and near their son, Leroy, in Rose Hills Memorial Park, Whittier, California.
 

Written by William K. Smothers, Hockessin, Delaware, grandson of William Roy Smothers & Minnie Nora "Jean" Franklin.  Updated 5 December 2002.  Copyright © 2002 William K. Smothers, all rights reserved.  No part of this biography, text or graphics, may be copied or reproduced without the expressed written consent of the author, William K. Smothers.

Related biographical sketches: Roy's parents John Frank Smothers & Clemma Furr  and Roy's son Leroy Smothers

Photographs: Click-on the thumbnail image at the top of this page!