The Family Scandal of Chester Rawlins Smith (1863 – 1912)
by David Oliver Smith
Researching family history is solving mysteries, as some mysteries are solved, more mysteries arise. While solving some minor mysteries in my father's family, I stumbled upon a mystery that involves sex, politics and maybe murder.
Since my great-grandfather had died six years before my father was born, and since my great-grandmother lived about a thousand miles away, I had not heard any family stories about my great-grandfather Chester Rawlins Smith. I went to visit my great-grandmother when I was five years old during a family vacation in 1948, but we certainly didn't discuss sex and politics. When I started researching my family history in depth I didn't expect scandal.
My great-grandmother was Marietta Renaker, known as "Etta". All I knew about her was that she was an avid University of Kentucky Basketball fan and her picture had appeared in a local newspaper during the 1950s with Adolph Rupp, legendary coach of the Kentucky Wildcats. I was to find out that was not the first time she had her picture in the paper. She was born in Harrison County, Kentucky, in 1872 and lived most of her life in Cynthiana, the county seat of Harrison County. During her marriage she lived with Chester in Covington, Kentucky, from 1890 – 1912. She was the daughter of a well-to-do tobacco farmer, but I didn't find this out until I made a research trip to Cynthiana. All I knew about my great-grandfather was his name. I knew this because after great-grandmother Etta died, my parents received a set of dessert spoons engraved "C & E Smith". I presumed this was a wedding gift.
When I retired I started researching family history at the urging of several family members. A year later I realized that the most interesting stories were not how many kings and nobles are in one's distant past but how relatives of the nineteenth and early twentieth century lived their lives and struggled to bring civilization to the untamed North American continent. I also discovered that it is not easy to research the "Smith" branch of your family and I had two! My grandfather, Oliver Wolcott Smith II, Chester and Etta's only child, married my grandmother whose maiden name was Louise Cook Smith.
Web based research revealed that great-grandmother Etta was buried in Battle Grove Cemetery in Cynthiana. I was hoping that her mother, Mary Levesque Renaker was buried there also. There are a lot of Renakers in Cynthiana and several Mary Renakers. There was a mystery about when my great-great-grandmother Mary Levesque Renaker died. So, my wife and I took a side trip to Cynthiana during the fall. While there I visited the Cynthiana Public Library which has a nice genealogy room. There I found an obituary for great-grandfather Chester and the settlement of the estate of Etta's father, W.S. Renaker. Chester and Etta had lived in Covington, Kentucky, but an obituary in the Cynthiana Democrat of December 19, 1912, stated that he was to be buried in Battle Grove Cemetery in Cynthiana. What luck! I could get photos of the graves of Chester, Etta, and I hoped, her parents, W.S. and Mary Renaker.
I found the Renaker plots in Battle Grove, and it was better than I had hoped. Not only were my great-great-grandparents buried there, but my great-great-great-grandparents as well. I had solved the mystery of the date of death of Mary Levesque Renaker. Etta's mother had died in 1878 at the age of 40, when Etta was only six. Etta's step-mother, Rose Ann Quinn, is also buried in this plot on the other side of W.S. One mystery I have not solved is what the "S" in "W.S" stands for. The "W" stands for William, but the "S" is still a mystery – some sources say "Seldon" and some say "Sherman". His headstone and the administrator's report on his estate were of no help. W.S. and Mary had large monuments with exact dates of birth and death.
In front of the monuments for W.S and Mary was a small headstone that said "Chester R. Smith 1863 – 1912" with the Masonic symbol on it, but immediately next to him was a similar headstone which said "Alice Norton Smith Feb 22, 1868 - Sept 3, 1938". Etta's grave was not there. Who was this Alice Norton Smith? I had not run across her in my research. Where was Etta? Why was she not buried next to Chester in front of her parents? More mysteries.
I went back to the cemetery office and found that Etta Smith was not in section D in the Renaker plot but in Section E. I found Etta's grave and surprisingly, the grave of my grandfather, Oliver, up the hill from the Renaker plot. Why were Etta and Oliver not buried in the large Renaker plots with Chester? Oliver died at the age of 34 in 1925; Etta did not die until 1959. I vaguely noted that there seemed to be plenty of room left in the plot for Etta and Oliver.
When I returned home I started an internet search to see what I could find about Alice Norton Smith and her relation to my family. I found that she was born Elizabeth Alice Norton, daughter of Charles Norton and Frances Clifford of Scott County, Kentucky. Scott County is adjacent to Harrison County. Interestingly, Alice's mother was a Clifford. This meant that Alice and Etta were related because Etta's grandmother was Jane Clifford. Frances Clifford and Jane Clifford were first cousins; therefore, Etta and Alice were second cousins, once removed. While Etta married Chester Smith, Alice married Burgess Smith of Scott County, Kentucky. I have found no connection between Chester and Burgess. Chester's Smith ancestors had moved from New York to Ohio and Burgess's ancestors were from Tennessee.
I found Alice and Burgess were living together in Turkeyfoot, Scott County, according to the 1900 federal census, but they were living in different houses in Scott County in the 1910 census and the 1920 census. Burgess is not listed in the 1930 census, and Alice was still living alone and is noted as a widow. For some reason they had become estranged. I found no record of a divorce. None of the censuses showed that there were children of Burgess and Alice living at the time of the censuses. Although in 1930 the census taker had marked Alice as a widow and Burgess was not listed, Burgess Smith provided the information on the 1938 death certificate of Alice Norton Smith, and indicated that he was her husband. The census taker must have missed him in 1930. Her death certificate specified that she was to be buried in Cynthiana.
After finding out these facts I dropped Alice Norton Smith as being merely a curiosity. I turned my attention to finding out more about great-grandfather Chester. The obituary I had found said that Chester had died in Covington and that he had worked for the Internal Revenue Service.
Covington, Kentucky is in Kenton County. The Kenton County Public Library has an online searchable index of the archives of Northern Kentucky newspapers on microfiche. Earlier I had found the obituary of my great-great-grandfather Oliver Wolcott Smith, Chester's father. I went to the index and searched for "Chester Smith". I got several hits – one saying that there was a photo. What luck! I had no photos of my great-grandfather. I hoped that there would be enough information in the caption of the photo to identify him as my Chester Smith (since there are so many Smiths). There was also an obituary with the headline "Chester R. Smith Noted IRS Man Dies." I knew this was my Chester Smith since the Cynthiana Democrat had said he worked for the IRS. Why was he noted?
I sent a request to the library for copies of these articles and eagerly awaited the response. They came within a few weeks and the packet was much larger than I anticipated. As I opened it, I saw a full page article from the Kentucky Post of June 6, 1906, entitled "Attorneys Refuse to Prosecute". At the top of this full page article were photos of Chester Smith, Mrs. Chester Smith, one J.H. Dettor, a Mrs. J.H. Dettor and a baby Chester Dettor. What a shock! What was this about?
According to the article John H. Dettor was accused of assault in beating up my great-grandfather Chester. John said that Chester had arranged to meet Mrs. Dettor (Annie) on a street corner in Covington with her 5 month old child whom she had named "Chester". John, a railroad yard switchman and member of the Covington Board of Education, suspected his wife was having an affair with Chester and followed her to the meeting place and assaulted Chester.
After reading this fascinating story I immediately went to the Kenton County Public Library website and did a search for "Dettor". I found more articles on the charges against John Dettor, the Dettor's divorce, and a prior article dated the day immediately after the assault. From the other articles I gleaned that Annie was afraid of John and that he had threatened to kill her. Annie claimed that she just happened to run into Chester that evening. According to John's after telling Annie that he was going out, he watched as she left their house and followed her. He got on the same streetcar that Annie took, but stayed on the platform so she couldn't see him. As Annie stepped off the streetcar, she handed Baby Chester to great-grandfather Chester. At that moment Dettor strode up to the couple. Great-grandfather Chester thrust the baby back to Annie. In the excitement the baby fell to the pavement, but was only slightly injured. Chester then ran away from John. Apparently Dettor caught him and gave him a beating. Two policemen heard the ruckus, broke up the fight and arrested John for breach of the peace. The beating was so bad that the reporter for the Kentucky Post wrote that the bruises still showed at the time of the arraignment three days later. Eventually Dettor pled guilty to assault and was fined. John and Annie were divorced some five months later with Annie keeping custody of baby Chester and John taking custody of the couple's other two children.
According to Chester's obituary and other articles, Chester was an active member of the Republican Party. He had been elected treasurer of a Covington Republican club when he was only 21 according to an 1884 newspaper article. It's my guess that since John Dettor was an elected official, Chester knew John from his political activity and possibly met his wife Annie at some political function.
At some point Annie and baby Chester moved to Cincinnati, across the Ohio River from Covington. Surprisingly they had changed their name to Carson, Annie's maiden name. I found this in the 1910, 1920 and 1930 census data for Hamilton County, Ohio. Annie and baby Chester changing their names to Carson may have been an order in the divorce case decree. Chester Carson died in 1972 and the record of his death in the Ohio death records lists him as married. Annie died in 1945 in Campbell County, Kentucky and Annie's son, Bryce Dettor, gave the information for her death certificate. Bryce was in the custody of his father during his minority, and it is curious that he gave the information and not Chester Carson. While living in Ohio she was known as Annie Carson, but her Kentucky death certificate has her name as Annie Dettor. Her death certificate erroneously states that she was widowed instead of divorced. It is certain that John was granted the divorce from Annie because he is listed in the 1910 and 1920 censuses with a different wife and their children, and his two older children by Annie, but not baby Chester. John H. Dettor had died the year before Annie died, 1944. Apparently Bryce didn't accept the divorce and still considered his mother and father to be married.
From the implication in the Kentucky Post my great-grandfather had had an extra marital affair and fathered a child. What happened between Chester and Etta? Did he deny the affair and stick to Annie's story that they just happened to meet that night? Did Etta believe this denial? Chester died in 1912 – six years after this incident. If Etta had continuing animosity toward Chester, when he died she could have turned his body over to Chester's parents, Oliver and Sylvesta, who lived in Covington only eight blocks away. She did not do that. Instead, Etta had Chester's remains transported to Cynthiana and buried in the Renaker plot in front of her mother and father who had died in 1878 and 1891, respectively. Apparently, at the time of Chester's death Etta had either forgiven him or believed his denial.
However, something must have happened between Chester's burial in 1912 and the death of their son Oliver, in 1925. There is plenty of room left in the plot to bury a number of people. Oliver could have been buried beside Chester or one space away with a place for Etta in between them. The photo below shows the Renaker plots. The two headstones in the foreground are Alice Norton Smith and Chester. The taller monuments behind them are W.S. and Mary Renaker, with W.S.'s second wife, Rose Ann, to the left of W.S. and Etta's sister Jenny, who died at age 10, to the right of Mary. The tall white monument is for Etta's grandparents Paul and Catherine Renaker. First note that Alice is clearly in the Renaker plot, which according to the cemetery map goes all the way to the street from which I took the photo. Also note that there is plenty of room for Oliver and Etta to the right of Chester. Isn't it curious how Alice's headstone is leaning toward Chester's - no doubt settlement of the soil over the last 70 years, or is it?.. -->[endif]-->
After learning about the Covington scandal, maybe Alice was not just a curiosity as I had first thought. How did Alice get in the Renaker plot? Alice died in 1938, 26 years after Chester died and 21 years before Etta died. Here is a possible scenario:
Despite Annie's story and Chester's presumed denial, they did have an affair and a child. In addition, Chester had other lovers besides Annie. Chester and Etta were married on December 26, 1890. Their only child, my grandfather, Oliver W. Smith II, was born September 25, 1891 – exactly nine months later. Although Chester and Etta were married 22 years, they never had another child. We certainly do not know why, but Etta may have been repulsed by or afraid of sex, or had a traumatic childbirth which rendered her incapable of having more children, who knows. A sexless marriage may have been the reason Chester sought out other women.
He was an IRS agent. His job as noted in the censuses and in the Covington City Directory was "Gauger – Storekeeper". According to IRS regulations of 1906, a gauger assessed tax on whiskey and other spirits by measuring the amount of spirits stored in barrels at the distillery. Gaugers were paid a portion of the tax they assessed not to exceed $5.00 per day. They were required to purchase their instruments from the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, and they were allowed expenses for traveling to the distilleries in their districts. Chester must have traveled to towns in his district in which distilleries were located. He may have had other paramours in these cities.
Alice Norton Smith was another of Chester's conquests. It is possible that he met her on one of his trips to Scott County. Alice lived in Scott County, Kentucky which is adjacent to Harrison County. Chester was raised in Covington across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. Chester's paternal grandparents and his maternal grandmother died in Cincinnati soon after he was born. His maternal grandfather died in Covington when Chester was 12. Chester's father worked in Covington most of his life and his parents out lived him by over ten years. Chester and Etta's son Oliver graduated from Covington High School in 1910. However, there were distilleries in both Scot and Harrison Counties and the railroad went through both counties. At some time before 1910 Alice and her husband Burgess had become estranged. Chester's life revolved in Covington while Harrison County and Scott County were some 60 miles south of Covington. It is possible that Chester met Etta on one of his trips to a Harrison County Distillery and met Alice on a trip to Scott County.
Alice may have considered Chester to be the love of her life, but to him maybe she was just one of the women he spent time with on business trips to distillery towns. Chester may have grown tired of Alice, especially if she were mentally unbalanced, and told her he was not going to see her anymore. She became distraught and devised a horrible plan. Alice's father Charles Norton, lived in Covington, not far from Chester and Etta. He was a blacksmith by trade. Alice may have visited her father by train and prevailed on Chester to meet her in Covington. During the meeting Alice was able to slip mercury, a deadly poison, into Chester's food or drink. After Alice had returned to Sadieville in Scott County, Chester became sick. Mercury has been used as a poison for centuries and can cause respiratory symptoms similar to emphysema.
According to Chester's obituary, he became sick at work and went home, becoming worse over the next six days and died December 17, 1912. The death certificate states that Chester died of tuberculosis. But that doesn't square with the obituary. I was unable to find a typical onset to death for active tuberculosis, but it was stated to be one of only two chronic diseases prior to 1900, the other being mental illness. Tuberculosis patients spent months in sanatoria. Playwright Eugene O'Neil spent six months in a sanatorium and was cured. If tuberculosis were not a chronic, lingering disease, there would not have been sanatoria around the country. One of the most famous tuberculosis sanatoria was in Louisville, 100 miles from Covington. Chester's death certificate also states that the doctor treated him from August 15 to December 17. That period does not evidence tuberculosis, but it may be evidence of a longer period from onset to death than the obituary implied.
In a curious coincidence Chester and Charles Norton, Alice's father died within 7 days of each other. Charles Norton died on December 24, 1912 – a week after Chester. His death certificate states that he died of "grippe" which is the obsolete word for influenza. Both men seemed to have died from respiratory disease. Did they die from the same thing? Charles Norton was 76 years old so his death is not surprising, but did Alice poison him, too? Did he get an accidental dose from Alice? Maybe Alice baked mercury laced cookies for Chester to eat and Charles ate some while they were cooling on the kitchen table.
My aunt Martha, who suffers from dementia according to my cousin, lived with Etta from 1925 to the early 1930s. She blurted out recently in a lucid moment that her grandfather had been murdered. Was this the raving of a senile woman, or a glimpse into the past, and Etta knew what Alice had done. Alice may have made a scene at Chester's funeral in Cynthiana and made it clear to everyone that Chester was the love of her life. If so, at that point Etta knew the truth. Chester had run around on her for years with numerous women. This must have been mortifying to Etta. All the gossip in Covington from 1906 to 1912 was true. In the wake of the scandal, her picture had been in the newspaper and the newspaper had reported that she went with Chester to court when he testified about the assault. She was in the same room, the prosecutor's office, with Annie and Baby Chester. Remembering that, Etta must have felt like a fool believing Chester and Annie's story.
Alice must have desperately wanted to be buried beside Chester. In 1930 she told the census taker that she was a widow when her legal husband, Burgess Smith, was still living. She must have pestered Etta to allow her to be buried beside him. In her mind she was Chester Smith's widow and she wanted to be buried with him for eternity. Evidently, Etta agreed. It was too late to move Chester from the Renaker plot, but she and her son did not have to be buried in that plot. Oliver was in college at the University of Kentucky when Chester died, he may have been mortified at the funeral, also. He died in 1925 at the Mayo Clinic of kidney disease. He may have told my grandmother Louise that he didn't want to be buried near his father. According to cemetery records his plot is owned by Mrs. Oliver Smith. Etta's plot is owned by A.B. Renaker, presumably a relative I have not yet traced.
Etta died in 1959. My parents attended the funeral. My father died in 2003. I never heard anything about this from him. Did Alice murder Chester because he was going to leave her and then she connived to lie beside him for eternity? We may never know the full truth.
Sex, politics and murder. All I set out to do was find out the date of my great-great-grandmother's death and to photograph some graves.