Uncovering a Legacy

Thomas Smith (’68, ’71) never knew his namesake, Tom Russel Smith (’42).

While stories of his uncle were scarce, Thomas Smith had a link to his family’s and alma mater’s past. For years, in Thomas and his wife Evonne’s (’68) Texas home, there was a trunk containing a large wool cardinal blanket with gold etching containing the year 1941; his uncle’s fraternity, Kappa Sigma; and his uncle’s name.

The blanket, presented as recognition for Smith’s selection as Iowa State’s Athlete of the Year for the 1940-41 school year, included three letter stripes and a star, signifying his status as captain of the 1940 Cyclone football team.

“When President Wendy Wintersteen came to visit us, I took the blanket out of the trunk and we took a picture,” Thomas Smith says.

That image opened the door to a reexamination of his uncle’s life.

Tom Smith had an ordinary name. He lived a short but extraordinary life.

Smith was raised in Boone, Iowa, 17 miles west of the Iowa State campus where he would make his name. His father, Arthur Smith, ran a florist business in town.

Smith demonstrated his prep football toughness using spare telephone poles purchased by the Boone school board as tackling dummies.

Smith chose to attend Iowa State, where he was admitted to study horticulture. Smith eyed a roster spot on the Cyclone football team, but a place on it was anything but certain. Iowa State head coach “Smilin” Jim Yeager was skeptical that Smith would be able to withstand the demands of guard play in the trenches of the Big Six Conference. Players competed on both offense and defense and rarely came out of the game.

“When I first saw Tom, he was wearing an oversized pair of pants and a torn green sweater,” Yeager later said. “He was the most gosh awful looking freshman I’ve ever seen.”

Yeager gave Smith the toughest test he could imagine, pitting him in practice against the heart of the Iowa State line: All-American and College Football Hall of Fame guard Ed Bock and future NFL regular Clyde Shugart. They pushed Smith up and down the field. After several series, Smith, with a serious face chimed “any time you guys have had enough, just tell me and I’ll ease up on you.”

Smith passed the test. He was one of only 16 sophomores to earn a 1938 varsity roster spot.

With Bock and Shugart in the line, and ably led by nifty All-American halfback Everett “Rabbit” Kischer, the 1938 Cyclones far exceeded the expectations of nearly everyone.

For the next two years, Smith was at the core of Iowa State teams that went 2-7 in 1939 and 4-5 in 1940. During his senior season, Smith had called signals for the team, a rarity for an offensive lineman. Limited substitution rules meant Smith was often choosing what play would be run by the Cyclone offense.

Media stories about Smith abounded.

Early in the 1939 season, Yeager was preaching the importance of speed to his team. The following day Smith showed up at practice with a shaved head.

“Coach, I want you to know I’m sacrificing everything for speed,” Smith said.

Smith’s outgoing, upbeat personality made him popular with his teammates and fellow students. He lived at his parents’ home in Boone to save money and would invite Cyclones over to enjoy a home-cooked meal and host teammates for weekends at the Smith cottage in Okoboji.

On the way back from a 1939 game at Marquette, the Cyclones stopped in Chicago to see the Bears play the Detroit Lions. The Bears took a timeout on 4th-and-2. The Cyclones were discussing strategy amid a fog of smoke from the pipe of Iowa State team physician Dr. J.F. Edwards. The doctor turned to Smith and asked what he would do in this situation.

“I’d throw away that pipe,” Smith said.

Smith was a renowned storyteller who liked to have fun, but he also had a serious side; duty was important. In 1940, he was helping his injured father run the family business, including selling corsages on campus, while handling his academic and athletic obligations.

“A good day’s work never hurts anyone,” Smith said. “The trouble with so many fellows is that they ride the gravy-train through college and then aren’t ready to take the knocks after they get out.”

“You could almost write a book about Tom (Smith). He’s a great boy and was an outstanding player.” — Iowa State head coach Jim Yeager

As a senior, Smith had bulked up to 190 pounds. He made up for his still small stature with the telephone pole toughness of his high school days. In one game, a 260-pound Oklahoma lineman complained to the referee that Smith was playing with unnecessary roughness.

The complaint disgusted Smith, who weighed 70 pounds less than his protesting foe.

“If I were your size,” Smith grumbled to his opponent. “I’d do something about it without going to the referee.”

George Veenker, Iowa State’s athletics director from 1933 to 1945, summed up Smith’s personal brand: “Tom was a manly sort of fellow, with a lot of personality, very level headed but always enjoying a joke.”

No doubt, Smith was ready for anything.

On March 31, 1941, Iowa State’s Agriculture Engineering Building caught fire. Smith chose not to be just a spectator. He got to the top of the building, grabbed an ax and started chopping holes in the roof to aid the firemen. In the process, he injured his foot by stepping on a nail that pierced his shoe sole.

Like many students, Smith’s priorities pivoted after the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States into World War II. He graduated in 1942 with his degree in horticulture, and soon after, joined the Navy.

Smith was quickly acclimated to the service as an ensign in the Naval Reserve. He entered flight training in lighter-than-air vehicles. The U.S. war effort did not produce enough planes to patrol the entire U.S. Pacific shoreline, so airships were used to meet the need. 

In the fall of 1944, Lt. j.g. Smith was on temporary duty in Delmar, California. After nightfall on Oct. 17, Smith was part of a seven-man crew of the King-111 airship. According to the official Navy report, because of a navigation problem aggravated by foggy conditions, the ship flew over blacked-out Catalina Island, 22 miles south-southwest of Los Angeles. The crew thought they were still over open water; they weren’t and they flew into tree tops and crashed.

In the early 1990s, then-Catalina Island Museum Director Patricia Moore interviewed the accident’s lone survivor, machinist’s mate Ernst Jarke. Jarke’s taped interview was detailed by reporter Jim Watson in the Catalina Islander.

The K-111 came down, brushing through some trees, which tore off the airship’s left engine. Jarke said the entire crew was able to jump safely from the ship’s gondola after the crash and they gathered near the top of a hill around the wreckage. The men were milling around the wreck when the fuel tanks exploded.

The men tried to flee but were either killed outright or initially survived the inferno horribly burned. Of those who lived long enough to be taken to an infirmary on the island, only Jarke survived. He spent eight months recovering from his burns.

Tom Smith, to whom duty was so important, was just 25 years old when he died for his country. Smith’s body was returned to Boone for funeral services. He was buried in his hometown’s Linwood Park Cemetery, where he lies today near his mother and father. His full name is engraved on a wall in the Memorial Union’s Gold Star Hall, honoring Iowa Staters who gave their lives in military conflicts since World War I.

The telling of Tom Smith’s story began with a blanket remembered and displayed by the nephew he never knew. When reexamined, it underscores a family’s shared devotion to Iowa State that has spanned generations.