James "Bud" Smith in His Youth

In the picture above, James “Bud” Smith is in a homemade go-cart near his home in Sandusky, Ohio about 1914. James was the son of Freeland Smith and his wife, the former Nettie Schnaitter. His siblings were Betty, Frank, Polly and Patricia.  An earlier photograph shows James and his sister Betty sitting on a donkey.

James enjoyed ice boating on the lake during the winter of 1923.

He served as class president during his senior year at Sandusky High School in 1925; He and his fellow class officers, class secretary Helen Wiegand and class vice president Edgar Robinson, appeared in the Sandusky Star Journal on May 23, 1925.

James Freeland Smith graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in engineering. In the 1930s, Mr. Smith was the inspector in charge of dredging projects for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Buffalo, New York. He later became the chief engineer for Union Chain, and its successor Hewitt-Robbins. Later he was head of project sales and engineering for Hewitt-Robbins, and its successor Litton Industries. After retiring from Litton, he served as vice president of North Central Television, Inc., retiring in 1973.

On December 15, 1984 James F. Smith died at the age of 77.  An obituary in the December 16, 1984 issue of the Sandusky Register stated that he had been a member of Grace Episcopal Church, the Sandusky Yacht Club, past president of the Sandusky Sailing Club, and was chairman of the Sandusky Zoning Code Board of Appeals since its inception in the 1950s.

James F. Smith lived an active life, filled with many civic, recreational and educational pursuits. Thanks to the generosity of a Smith family descendant, several photographs of the Smith and Schnaitter families can be seen at the website of the SanduskyLibrary Historical Collections. Original copies of the photographs are held in the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center.