The Double Tragedy of the Alfred Smith Family of South Dakota

JACOB SMITH > JAMES SMITH > JOHN R SMITH > ALFRED SMITH m Maggie R Johnson

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You can read about John R Smith and his daughter Harriet here and about his daughter Ollie here.

Alfred Smith was born 16 May 1867 while his parents lived in Iowa. They moved on eventually to South Dakota. His parents then moved on to Ripon, San Joaquin County, California, but some of the children remained in the Midwest including Alfred.

He met Maggie R. Johnson, who was born in 1874 in New York and married her on 15 Dec 1892. The couple would have eight children; one died in infancy, one died in a tragic accident that would make headlines for days, one would be the victim of another accident during a snowstorm.

Mabel Smith was born in 1909. Her family lived in Mitchell, Davison County, South Dakota. She was your typical 10-year-old who one Saturday afternoon set out to visit friends. When she hadn't arrived home by supper, her parents began to worry. They set about searching for her to no avail. Several hours later, the sheriff was notified and Al Scott's bloodhounds spent hours searching for the girl. Early on, they had some hints that she had been in the area near her parents' home, but as nothing turned up, they turned to other sources who had purportedly seen the girl and headed down to the railroad yard. The trail was cold there. They gave up in the early hours in the morning with intent to start again later that morning.

Reportedly, the girl had been seen speaking to a "strange Negro man," earlier in the day. The only negros in the area were two laborers who had been rooming in the area while they worked on the road gang. The sheriff was quick to point out that they were well-known in town and were also not in the area on the day of the disappearance. Talk of the "strange negro," died out.

Common old house porch cistern trap door

On the 21st of October, three days later, her body was discovered in the cistern under the porch of the home of the C. E. Thompson's, a short distance from her home. She had drowned. Cisterns in old homes were not uncommon. They typically used the roof as a rain collection surface, gutters and downspouts delivering the water into the cistern. They were often built under porches, with a trap door over the entrance to avoid accidents. The vault below held the water which was typically accessed  by a pump in the house and used for laundry and cleaning rather than drinking.  In the Thompson home, the cistern door was not near the back porch entry, where the child had entered, so it was unclear why she had raised the cistern door and gone in if it weren't at someone else's hands.

Her mother believes she was murdered. This article, which was newswired to nearby Aberdeen, makes clear that it was a mystery that would have no clear solution, despite the fact the coroner's inquest came back with a ruling of accidental and not homicidal causes. No suspect was ever located.

Just three years later, young Archie Alfred Smith, on his way home from work with his coworker, Orvis Yahne, would walk the tracks in a blinding snowstorm and be hit and killed by the train snow shovel. He was 21 years old.

Alfred died 03 Apr 1936 in Davison County and Maggie died in Stellacoom, Pierce County, Washington on 25 Nov 1951.