Moses Aaron Smith

Let me share my Grandpa Moses Story. I called him Poppa; I remember him well. As you will read, Poppa was an incredible man, especially for the times in which he lived. Moses Aaron Smith was born, July 5, 1864, and died on December 10, 1956; four days before my 15th birthday, he lived to be 92. Poppa was born to enslaved parents Aaron & Cuttie Smith on an obscure plantation somewhere in White Marsh, Gloucester, VA. When he was a year old, the Emancipation Proclamation was ratified on December 18, 1865, and slavery was abolished. Poppa was raised on Plantation Lands during these turbulent times and later migrated to Mulberry Island near Yorktown, VA. When former enslavers gave formerly enslaved people and their decedents land; Poppa was about 16 years old; he was granted 10.65 acres of rich farmland on Mulberry Island, where he grew up. He married Miss Dolly Jones, around 1893-95, and they had two children; they lost their first child as an infant, and on December 22, 1895, their son, Clarence Spencer Smith, was born. Dolly died in a tragic boating accident when Clarence was two years old. A few years later, Poppa and my grandma Jane Boykins were married on February 1, 1900, in Lee Hall, Virginia. They had nine children; Moses, Jr., Mary, Samuel, Cuttie, John, Alexander, Elnora, Joseph, and Lucille, my Mother. On November 16, 1942, Grandma Jane died in Lee Hall, VA. Poppa was a hard-working farmer; who also worked as a handyman on his parents' former enslaver's farm, as did his parents. He earned little money throughout his lifetime; yet, he had a genuine character and a solid work ethic with a deep devotion to his family. Poppa was not formally educated, and he learned to read independently.