Claud Preston Smith had only a 6th grade education. The family was very poor and wince Claud was the oldest child, he had to work and help the family survive. The fact that he was a step-chld to his step-mother, Mary Pearl Jones Smith, had nothing to do with it.
My the time Claud and met and married Ola Vera Kirk, he was already on his way to educating himself and was an avid reader until his eyesight became to poor to read.
After WWII and until retirement, he was the Secretary/Treasurer for the Machinist Union in the Miami, Arizona copper mines; after moving from his underground mining work, he served as one of the purchasing agents for the Inspiration Consolidated Copper Company.
