----Source: Greenwood Gleaner 12/10/1903

OBITUARY

Death is everywhere. Above, beneath, within, and, in fact, all around, yea, we are also death. With the death of the bird song and fading of the flowers another life has passed away. How true, death is sad, sad when it comes to the little one in the cradle, though unconscious of sorrow or pain, sad when it comes to the aged one bowed down with the weight of years, and doubly so when it claims for its own those just in the bloom of youth.

Sunday the once genial young man in the person of Walter Smith passed over the dark river into the mysteries of the great beyond. Though his life has been made uncertain for some time in the past by that dread disease diabetes, yet his death came as a shock to the community.

"Walt" as he was familiarly addressed by those who knew him best was 376 years, 3 month and 18 days old at the time of his death, having been born in Manitowac, Wis., Aug. 11, 1867, where he spent the first eleven years of his life, coming to Clark county in 1878, locating in Longwood in 1881, where he together with his father kept a hotel, some few years later he engaged in business for himself. Longwood is his boyhood home where he was known and respected by all as an energetic and ambitious young business man and was at the time of his death one of the leading men of the city of Withee in business affairs.

He was married Dec. 4, 1889, to Clara Moody of La Crosse county, Wis. The sympathy of the entire community is with the bereaved ones and while we cannot assuage the grief which wells up in the hearts of those left behind, we can sympathize with them in their great loss foe we have felt the heavy hand of the despoiler and know how grievous it is to be borne.

The remains were laid to rest in the local cemetery in Withee after appropriate services by the local church and Modern Woodmen of which lodge deceased was a member--M.I.M.