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Although I've heard the name “Gypsy Smith,” my knowledge about him was limited. I knew he was an evangelist with a gypsy background, but I was not familiar with the details. When I was reading the April 1931 “News-Topic” I learned that the evangelist had preached in Lenoir.
I did a little research to get the background on the man. I learned that there were two evangelists named Gypsy Smith, father and son. It was the son, Gypsy Smith Jr. who preached a revival in Lenoir in 1931. However, the promotional material stated that his father, Gypsy Smith Sr., had preached in Lenoir on two previous occasions, and that the son had led a local revival in 1920. The newspaper story quoted heavily from a sermon that Gypsy Jr. preached at the Lenoir High School auditorium. In the sermon he told how his grandfather was a gypsy and his grandmother was dying. The grandmother had tried to attend a church service in England but was turned away because she was a gypsy. She stood on the church steps to hear what she could. As she lay dying, she began singing a hymn that she had heard that day, and she told her husband she was not afraid to die. This led to the conversion of her husband, and her son and her grandson became well-known evangelists. The revival in Lenoir was sponsored by the First Presbyterian Church, but there were services at First Baptist, First Methodist, and Smith Memorial Methodist, as well as the one at the high school. According to the newspapers he preached to packed houses at all of these services. Charles Pegram, who wrote a column called “Mirrors on Caldwell,” related the following on April 18, 1931: “There is a powerful preacher in town. His sermons are drawing hundreds each night and the church leaders think his visit here will have ended too soon on Sunday. But what of the man? “All I have been able to find out is that he dotes on working crossword puzzles. Except for that one phase, no one knows of pet abominations. He sits alone on the porch at the Carlheim Hotel. He dines alone; plays the radio alone; and when others approach, meekly he bows out of the picture. “Very few persons at the hotel had learned to recognize him at sight after his first week here. An amusing instance occurred in the dining room Sunday at breakfast when Solicitor Spurling and Marshall Houck were poking fun at each other as they ate their grapefruit, bacon and eggs et cetera. “Houck speaking: ‘Spurling, I've just recited a few of your shortcomings and if you don't cure those faults, I'm gong to see Gypsy Smith about you.' And Les Myer tried in vain to wave to the arguing patrons to silence. “Sitting at a nearby table was Smith in the flesh. He heard it all - couldn't have helped it, and Houck was mortified to death.” According to the newspaper he was leaving to go to Augusta, Ga., for a golden wedding anniversary and to Atlanta for a revival. He lived until 1951. I don't know if he ever came back to Caldwell County. John O. Hawkins is a native of Caldwell County. He resides in Buffalo Cove.
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