Wilburn Suber Smith is my paternal grandfather and the son of Charles McClellan Smith and Belle Irene Suber.

Birth

Wilburn Suber Smith, Sr., was born on December 6, 1896, in Fairview Cottage, at Hemingway (no longer a town) in Carroll County, Mississippi. He was baptized in 1909 at the Shiloh Baptist Church, also in Carroll County.

Marriage

Wilburn married Ethel Roper Lannom on August 16, 1927, in Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky.

Children

Wilburn and Ethel had three children, two of whom lived to adulthood.

Occupation

Wilburn was ordained a minister at the First Baptist Church at Oxford, Mississippi on August 8, 1920. He studied law at the University of Mississippi and graduated in 1923 then went to law school and passed the Mississippi bar exam but may never have practiced. Soon after, he entered the seminary at Louisville, Kentucky.

Rev. Smith was born December 6, 1896 in Hemingway (Carroll County), Mississippi. He graduated with a LLB degree from the University of Mississippi School of Law, graduated from the Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky where he received a Th. M. degree and where he did post graduate study. He was ordained by the First Baptist Church of Oxford, Miss. in 1920 and married Ethel Lannom in Louisville, Ky. in 1927.

The pastorates held by Brother Smith in addition to the student pastorates in Mississippi and Kentucky were: Jackson Hill Baptist Church, Atlanta, Ga.; First Baptist Church, Cairo, Ga.; First Baptist Church, Starkville, Miss.; First Baptist Church, Ashford, Ala.; Pastor Emeritus First Baptist Church, Cairo, Ga. (where he still serves in 1974.)

Among the denominational contributions of Brother Smith was as a member of the Home Mission Board; trustee of the New Orleans Baptist Seminary, and member of the New Orleans Baptist Seminary, and member of the Executive Committees of Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama Baptist Conventions. He was a guest editor of the Christian Index. He was also a contributor to Open Windows and Mission Journals.

During Brother Smith’s ministry in Cairo the following young men were ordained into the ministry: Julian Pipkin, 1938; Charles Standridge, 1944; Robert Edwards, 1942 and Hugh Wamble in 1947. In 1937 the Cairo First Baptist Church gave the pastor a trip to Europe, with a party of fellow Baptists led by Dr. Roland Q. Leavell.

Military

Residence

Death

Wilburn died on December 31, 1980, in Tyler, Texas.

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