Carroll Smith was actually known as Josh Smith during most of his life, mainly to avoid playground scuffles being a boy with a girl’s name. ‘Josh’ attended school in the Willow, Okla. area, a small community in the Southwest corner of Oklahoma originally known as Old Greer County.
He began his working career as a very young child pulling a cotton sack through the fields of the family farm. As a youngster, he also worked in his uncle’s grocery store where he was taught to be a butcher along with other chores. Carroll loved animals, rodeos, and had his own horse while still in grade school, frequently riding his horse to visit family members a few miles from home. Early in life he wanted to be a vet and learn to care for animals. Even in the early 1980s after moving to a small acreage in SE OK County he had horses, peacocks, a few sheep, rabbits, chickens, and a few llama.
As a young teenager, he made two trips with a wheat harvest crew that ultimately turned around to head home somewhere near the Canadian border. On the second trip, one adult driver was unable to complete the journey with the crew. ‘Josh’, then about 15 years old with no legal driver’s license and without any negative incident, drove the truck hauling the heavy equipment back to the owner’s facility in the Texas panhandle, not far from Willow.
Another dream he had was to be a crop duster and did learn to fly a small plane, even getting as far a doing a solo. He did not get a license and it was probably because he could not afford to complete that dream.
Carroll and Christine married when they were still teenagers and moved to Sayre, Okla. where they began their family with the birth of the first daughter, Jan. While there, Carroll worked for the
Sayre Fire Department and Christine worked in a restaurant. Later the family moved to Oklahoma City where Carroll worked for the Village Fire Department and also began his own personal ‘career’ by working as a Chef’s assistant in a local Country Club. As time went on, and with the family having grown to include Jan, Lanetha, the twins Ronnie and Vonnie, Carroll and Christine created a business known as Property Services, Inc. taking on commercial jobs such as cleaning and striping parking lots, cleaning of commercial offices, and then to cleaning of commercial vent hoods in restaurants and hospitals. Property Services, Inc. was the first custodial contractor to clean and service (for five years) Crossroads Mall in SE Oklahoma City. For about 15 years, PSI also was under contract to clean the paint booths at Tinker AFB.
When Carroll began the move to Kingston, son Ronnie and wife Deena created D&R Property Services, Inc to purchase the PSI business that still continues to serve some of the original customers..
Late in the 1970s, Carroll joined with a friend, A.C. Eason, to form a commercial transportation company known as Eason & Smith. In 1979, they were successful bidders and obtained a contract with Tinker AFB to transport hazardous wastes following the EPA guidelines being developed by the federal government. During the years the Tinker AFB contracts were in force, Eason & Smith was also doing similar work for the OKC General Motors plant as well as hauling wastes for private companies. .
Things suddenly changed when the E&S building and most of the equipment was destroyed during the tornado of May 3, 1999 that swept through Blanchard, Moore, Oklahoma City, and NE almost to Tulsa. Even though a new building was being built on a different site in 2001, many of the former employees had either retired or moved to other jobs and Carroll was much too tired to continue. He made a verbal agreement with a good friend, Jorge Cruz, who took over the remaining work to be done at the GM plant and Carroll began to search for a new place to live somewhere between OKC and Dallas.
The move to Kingston began when papers were signed to purchase the Alberta Creek Road property on his birthday in 2002 and the move was finally completed in April 2004. In spite of some personal health challenges that developed, Kingston was a good new life that Carroll enjoyed during his remaining years. He especially appreciated the opportunity of helping with the development of the New Hope Baptist Church and family.
Memorial service will be Saturday, January 8, 2022 at 10:00 am at the Watts Funeral Home, Kingston, Oklahoma. Elmer Whitehead will officiate the service.