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209197 Pte. Lloyd Weir Smith United States Army Eighth Service Command from:St. Paul and Lake Elmo, MN Lloyd W. Smith was born March 29, 1906 at or near St. Paul, MN, and married Lily Violet Knoll, St. Paul, in the early 1930s. By 1941-42 Smith was in his mid thirties, relatively old. Drafted and a private, he served as a German P.O.W. guard in the Eighth Service Command (according to the shoulder patch on his uniform dress coat). The coat only shows his rank and unit on his shoulder patches, but his niece Janet, recalls him recounting his experience as a guard of these Germans held in the U.S. After the war Lloyd Smith worked as a skilled machinist in a factory east of St. Paul, living near a brother, Eldon, in Lake Elmo, MN, Washington County. He and Mrs. Smith lived in a cottage on Lake Elmo by the 1940s, without indoor plumbing, Janet remembers, and by the early 1950s built a ranch style house on a good sized lot near the town center and the C & NW Ry. main tracks. In the 1970s and early 1980s the couple hosted many large Knoll family mid-summer gatherings on the occasions of the month-long visits after 1972 of Lily's (Aunt Lil's) younger sister, Edna Knoll (Schroeder) Taylor. After Lloyd's retirement in the early 1970s, the couple would reciprocate with winter visits to Edna, a widow, in Phoenix, AZ. Lloyd frequently told stories about his days as a guard of the German prisoners. He felt sympathy for them, they also being relatively simple citizens caught up in a larger global conflict. But he was professional about their status, and did not object to the measures required to discipline them. His spouse's family were of German background, and he attended with Lil the German Baptist Church, and this connection contributed very likely to his ability to empathize with these prisoners so far from home. Janet and Arthur Miller are not clear on or agreed about where Lloyd served. But we do recall that this was away from the St. Paul area. In the mid 1980s he gave to us his Army dress coat, to be worn by the Millers' daughter, Janelle. She used it briefly and since then the coat has been preserved by his niece Janet. |
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