It Happened in Crawford County: Richard Smith's devotion to his faith, family and farming

Richard Smith is a son of Warren and Martha Kocher Smith. His brothers and sisters are Kathleen (Atwell), Earl, Jane (Korner), Roger, Glenn and Carol (Hutchison).

When Richard started school, the family lived about 4 miles east of town. He started first grade at North Robinson, but his dad wanted to attend Bible school and the family moved to Portland, Oregon, for a year. Richard was in second grade at that time. When they came home, his dad bought a farm on the Quaker Road.

Richard started third grade at Holmes Liberty. His favorite class was vocational ag and he enjoyed the scrap drives to earning money for Future Farmers of America. They got a day off school and went to neighboring farms to pick up scrap to sell to the junk yard. In his senior year, Richard was FFA president. It was a good experience as they won the county FFA Parliamentary Procedure Contest. He graduated from Holmes Liberty in 1961.

Richard started driving tractor when he was 5 and continued working for his father who raised registered angus cattle. He worked at Timken for seven years to earn enough money to purchase a farm and buy a herd of cows. He was thinking about a wife, and he prayed to God.

“Please send me a wife with qualities just like my own mother," Richard said. “God surely said, yes. I got a carbon copy of my mom, someone who would enjoy working with me on our farm.”

Marjorie Lust, a daughter of Frank and Nina Lust, came into Richard’s life and they married in 1964. Frank was well known for his blacksmith shop on Marion Melmore Road. He was innovative and could fabricate machinery, making it so helpful to the farmers. Marjorie had a sister Sylvia (Wingert) and a brother David. Nina suffered from the death of her son when he was only 14, plus she had a chronic health condition that kept her bedfast until her death in 1977 at age 57.

Farming is a family affair

Marge also worked at Timken to get ahead so the couple could rent, and eventually purchase, a farm southwest of Bucyrus. They started with 30 milking cows in 1969, growing the herd to around 50. They had three children who grew up on the farm, and they all inherited the love of farming.

Son Chuck now runs the farm, currently a grain farm. He also has a 2,500-head finishing barn of hogs for Hord’s Family Farms. He gets the hogs at about 20 pounds, and they are ready for sale at 290 pounds.

Daughter Roberta became an intensive care nurse at a hospital in Marion. She married Paul Schroder, and they are cattle ranchers in Montana, selling calves at about 800 pounds.

Daughter Melissa and her husband, Jody Gregory, live in Crawford County and raise deer. They sell the bucks to hunting clubs.

Mission work in Port au Prince, Haiti

Richard is proud to have done missionary work in Haiti. He went with a group from Crawford County in 1971. They arrived at Port au Prince at an orphanage and treated the lumber in the building with creosote that formed a protective shield on the wood from termites and other insects. Fred Suter from north of Bucyrus was on the trip. Richard and the other men built a concrete pad for the small grain bin Fred was providing to protect the food from the rat population.

Richard was struck by the sight of 30-35 people en route to somewhere. They were hanging outside a small pickup with a stock rack built on the sides. Richard said life also was plain and simple for him and the other volunteers for the two-week stay. They bathed in an irrigation ditch and meals were served from a cast-iron kettle prepared by "a little stooped-over lady."

“God only knows what we ate, but it was good," he recalled.

Richard was sent on to Cape Haitian to do maintenance work on another missionary compound. Families could lease one acre for a family food plot, and Richard helped by plowing the lots with a John Deere tractor and disc. Nearby was a group of kids, and they helped by carrying the rocks out. Richard gave them dimes, and they left the area, only to return with another flock of kids. Richard gave them dimes for their work, too.

He also serviced two diesel generators, while standing nearby were two young men who didn’t speak English. They watched, and Richard taught them how to do the work themselves.

Richard made 14 trips to four countries to help with construction for Christian camps, mostly for the Word of Life. The highlight for Richard was having two grandsons and one granddaughter travel with him, one time each, to help.

Richard remarked, “My most important relationship is with Christ, and my second relationship is my wife and family.”

Go online for more of Mary Fox’s stories and photos on bucyrustelegraphforum.com. If you are interested in sharing a story, write Mary Fox, 931 Marion Road, Bucyrus, OH 44820 or email littlefoxfactory@columbus.rr.com.

This article originally appeared on Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum: Richard Smith committed life to faith, family, farming in Crawford Co.