SMITH FAMILY CEMETERY OF LITTLE NECK
20 family members at rest
John Jerome Smith
1852 – 1906
Nancy Elizabeth Smith
1858 - 1910
In 1888, John 22 married 16-year-old Nancy Dixon.
They purchased 166 acres, for $3,500.
The land stretched from the Lynnhaven River south,
ending just shy of a dirt track that would one day be Virginia Beach Blvd.
John spent most of his years fishing the Chesapeake Bay and its fingers.
He lived in the age of canvas sails, untamed spaces and horsepower that moved on four legs.
When the couple’s first son, William A. Smith died at the age 9,
they buried him on a quiet, tree-rimmed corner of the property.
From there, a cemetery sprouted a place where the family could bury its own in peace and eternal togetherness.
After John died, Nancy, divided the land among their three sons.
George Edward Smith Mary Jane “Mamie” Dixon Smith
1879 – 1964 1882 - 1961
George was a crusty, rawboned crabber with a taste for Lucky Strike’s.
Mary was soft-spoken, work-roughened and devoted to her Bible.
Mary Jane and George raised 12 children in a two-story,
wooden house that stood next to this graveyard.
Mamie Mason about 1955 standing in the back yard of her home at
Smith Lane later named 401 Leffler Lane.
George and the 5 boys, crabbed from small skiffs. Mid-morning they would return and the boys tended the wood-fire steamer while the 7 girls picked and packed the crab meat. George would drive to the Oceanfront, where he hawked the crab meat at beach cottages and hotel restaurants. Mary cooked, cleaned & raised children.
They turned their front room and porch into a dining area and Mamie became chief cook and waitress for the “all-you-can-eat-for-a-buck” restaurant.
Arnold Randolph Smith Alice Susan Diggs Smith
1884 – 1925 1887 – 1910
Arnold ran a grocery store near the village of Lynnhaven.
Arnold and Alice parents to four children.
Tragedy struck this family after losing their daughter, Kathryn.
She had been playing in the attic with her cousins when they discovered a gun.
As the children were handling it the gun fired killing Kathryn, age 8.
One year later, Alice gave birth to a baby boy who died on the same day.
These events took their toll on this family. Arnold became known as “Mad Arnold”. Alice filed to end the marriage in 1924. She refused to drop the divorce proceeding’s. In June 1925, Arnold, armed with a shotgun, confronted Alice in the yard outside of her home and shot her twice. Then, he turned the gun on himself.
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