Elwood G. Smith, Doughboy

My mother, Ellen, just sent me a photo album that my father, Elwood J., put together in the late 1940s. The photos cover 1942-1948— the end of his high school years, his army training, his stint in Alaska during World War II, and home life after he returned, including his sister Betty's wedding. With this album were a handful of other photos--beautiful studio portraits of Alice in her 60s, my father as a boy, and this one of his father Elwood G., most likely dating from 1917. I am pretty sure that my father only acquired this photo after Alice's death in 1999. I include it here because it's from the time period of Alice's album. Alice and Elwood G. married in 1924. 

I never met Elwood G. He died years before I was born, and the few stories I heard made him out to be a tough guy who didn't suffer fools and could throw a sharp punch. Grandma Alice said that the war changed him profoundly. Here, he is still a young man with a lifetime ahead of him.