Middleburg Sends Off A Loved and Respected Native Son in Grand Style

When Charlie Smith was young, he fell off a porch and hurt his leg so badly that he could no longer walk to school. It wasn't a long walk, no more than a mile and a quarter, but Charlie simply could not walk. Dr. Safford, who was treating him in Middleburg, could not correct the problem and finally sent him to Arlington Children's Hospital for treatment. He was there for a long time while the doctors tried to treat him with bed rest. Eventually, they realized that, when he fell, he had landed on his feet and splintered all the major bones in his leg. "It cracked just like a mirror," he remembered in his oral history in The Black History Committee's Collection in Leesburg's Thomas Balch Library.

They said Charlie's leg would knit together if he stayed off it, but if he walked long distances, the splinters would surely break and it would be impossible for him to ever walk again. So, the doctors operated and inserted a piece of steel from the middle of his ankle to his knee and from his knee to his hip to replace the splintered bone.

Charlie could walk, but Loudoun County would not let him continue to attend school. The walk was too long and they didn't want to be responsible if he broke the leg again. From that moment on, Charles Smith educated himself.

Charlie, as everyone called him, was honored at a New Orleans-style funeral and memorial service February 4th. Family, friends, admiring neighbors and colleagues remembered him fondly and well at the standing-room-only event in Middleburg's Community Center on a brisk, sunny Saturday. As the funeral cortege left the perfectly matched pair of Shire horses from Ayrshire Farm pulled his casket in a caisson for one last drive through Middleburg. The crowd of over two hundred mourners who spoke softly about what a wonderful man Charlie had been and remembered a multitude of stories about his kindness and generosity. To honor Charlie, Middleburg police reserved his regular parking space in front of the Safeway where mourners covered his pickup truck with notes and flowers.

Polecat Hill

Born in 1933 on Polecat Hill Road, Charlie spent his entire life there as he matured, married Jean Elizabeth Wright, raised nine children, six of his own and three who needed a warm and loving home, and made himself invaluable to almost everyone who lived in the Middleburg area. He was the only child of William Arthur Smith and Louise Jackson. His father, who was born in Loudoun County, remarried and had two more boys but, as Charlie always said, …"I'm the onliest one by my mother."

Charlie's father's parents, Wade and Katie Smith, lived on Polecat Hill Road and raised him after his mother died in an automobile accident in Warrenton when he was six.

"My grandmother, Katie Bolden Smith, raised twenty-eight children during the depression, and she delivered half of the babies in Middleburg. She did laundry and cooked dinner parties for people, and she purchased the five acres on Polecat Hill Road where I've lived all my life," Charlie remembered in his oral history in The Black History Committee's Collection at the Thomas Balch Library in Leesburg.

One of the people his grandmother worked for was Mrs. D.C. Sands. When Mrs. Sands was ill with tuberculosis and no one wanted to do her laundry, Charlie's grandmother did her clothes. When later his grandmother asked if she could purchase the five-acre parcel of land on Polecat Hill Road, the Sands family gladly sold it to her.

Katie Smith was born in 1890 and Charlie remembered well her stories about Middleburg at the turn of the century. She attended the old Middleburg School for black students until the fifth or sixth grade. "Middleburg was mostly black when my grandmother was young," Charlie remembered. "On the main street in town coming in from the Aldie side there were three or four black families on the main road, and both sides of the street, left to right were blacks up the first block and on the left hand side all the way up the street, all the way to the other end."

"The town was, I would say, better than fifty, maybe seventy-five percent, black. It was an old country farm town where everybody worked on the farm, and you came to town on Saturday night to sit on the street and play guitars." "They talked about what everybody was doing on the farm, who was planting potatoes and who was digging and who was doing whatever. It was completely a farm and a working community town."

According to Charlie's oral history, Middleburg only had a few merchants when he was young, an A&P, a Ben Franklin and a few small country stores. In addition to Dr. Safford who treated his broken leg, Middleburg also had an African American doctor, Maurice Britton King Edmead. "Dr. Edmead came and built a house in Middleburg. He was a wonderful doctor, but he moved to Alexandria after a few years."

Charlie remembered segregation being a serious issue in the 1940's and '50's when members of the black community could no longer go into shops or restaurants. "We had to go to the back door of The Coach Stop for a beer or a hamburger, it was all like that then." It was not until 1963 when things began to change.

How did the 'mostly black' community change to such a segregated town? According to Charlie, there was a very simple answer. Many children of the white plantation owners were not fascinated with either horses or agrarian pursuits, so their parents purchased shops for them to run in the village. Soon, blacks were not at all welcome in the shops under new ownership, and they were excluded from the front doors of the commercial section of town.

However, all the tradesmen, the contractors, the blacksmiths, the stonemasons and carpenters were black. In fact, Charlie remembered, the town was almost all black. The whites were plantation owners and everyone worked for them.

JFK & Jackie

It was not until John F. and Jacqueline Kennedy decided to build a house in Middleburg that things began to change. "When the Kennedy's came to town, that is what really changed Middleburg," according to Charlie. When town leaders were advised that the President wanted to live in Middleburg, they built the Catholic Church. When they learned that he would prefer not to have any demonstrations of segregation, they began to integrate Middleburg. "That really opened up the stores and places where we could not go….
just before Kennedy came to town," Charlie said.

Although Charlie never met President Kennedy personally, he saw him several times in town but, as he said, '…they weren't here very long."

When asked by oral historian Chester Ramey if he thought Middleburg's black community had shrunken in size and influence, Charlie responded that, today, there were "…A few blacks around, but nothing like it used to be."

"When I was young, there were two black restaurants in town, now blacks are beginning to come back. My daughter, Tootie, has The Back Street Café and she has tremendous business with everybody." "There will be a lot more jobs when Sheila Johnson builds her resort and, I think it will do Middleburg a lot of good. She wants to help this town and this town needs the help. There are not enough people to support all the stuff that needs to be done and she is willing to help. I think the town should accept that help."

There are many more fascinating reminiscences in Charlie Smith's oral history. He speaks lovingly about his children, all six of whom live nearby, his family and his life in Middleburg. His immense intelligence and ability to learn quickly propelled him through many jobs in the area until he found his calling as a sought-after and successful builder.

Charlie worried about how young people would cope in a real emergency, and mused that he and his wife had to put their fresh milk in "store milk bottles" so his children would drink it, and place their fresh eggs in egg cartons so their kids would think they'd come from the store.

Charles Smith lived through times of remarkable change and he loved his life as much as his friends and relations loved him. They sent him off with a wonderful celebration that was much deserved and well earned.

In lieu of flowers, remembrances for Charlie Smith may be sent to Capital Hospice, 6565 Arlington blvd., Suite 501, Falls Church, VA 22014.