Barry Gilligan solely encountered Kenneth Smith as soon as, however he left an impression that lingers greater than 65 years later.
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The Lake Township resident believes it was round 1956, the 12 months he turned 14, that he went to a farm outdoors of Warren for a gathering of the Warren Astronomy Membership, now the Warren County Astronomical Society.
That was the place he noticed Smith.
Gilligan didn’t communicate to Smith and doesn’t bear in mind whether or not Smith was carrying his Navy uniform or civilian clothes. What he does bear in mind is the best way others handled Smith.
“He appeared well-known by varied [people], and in conversations with him, they appeared to defer to him, even the older and extra skilled membership members,” Gilligan wrote in notes he has taken in his analysis of Smith’s life.
Like Smith, Gilligan was not solely an beginner astronomer, however he additionally constructed telescopes to promote to different amateurs. Following Smith’s dying whereas on his ship off the coast of Greece in September 1957, Gilligan went to the Ravenna dwelling of Smith’s mother and father to buy telescope elements that Smith saved there. He additionally acquired enterprise paperwork, together with copies of correspondence between Smith and others.
“I had the impression that he was an excellent author,” stated Gilligan. “And a little bit of a go-getter.”
The reminiscence of Smith and people paperwork have caught with Gilligan, now 80, and over the previous couple of years, he has been making an attempt to analysis Smith’s life, with the eventual intention of writing a definitive obituary for Smith to submit on-line. This contains Smith’s considerably mysterious dying, main Gilligan to wonder if Smith’s mother and father have been ever even instructed how their son died.
“There was one thing his mother and father stated that led me to consider he died in a ship’s fireplace, but when I am to consider the ship’s log, he died by suicide,” stated Gilligan.
From teenage businessman to sailor
Kenneth Theodore Smith Jr. was born on Aug. 16, 1936, and died Sept. 27, 1957, in accordance his headstone in Arlington Nationwide Cemetery in Virginia.
In keeping with an obituary revealed within the Document-Courier on Sept. 30, 1957, Smith was born in Kittanning, Pennsylvania, a city about 35 miles northeast pf Pittsburgh. Gilligan stated he checked out Pennsylvania census information however had issue discovering helpful info.
“The best way they’re organized, I couldn’t make any sense of them,” he stated.
The obituary solely mentions Smith’s mother and father, a grandmother and grandfather in Ravenna and a grandmother in Kittanning as survivors. Gilligan stated it seems Smith was an solely youngster.
It’s unclear when the household moved to Ohio, however Smith attended Ravenna Excessive Faculty. Gilligan was capable of finding Smith’s sophomore 12 months photograph, taken round 1951, whereas doing analysis at Reed Memorial Library in Ravenna.
The one different photograph of Smith that Gilligan was capable of finding throughout his library analysis was one among him in his uniform that ran with the obituary. Nevertheless, Smith’s face was in shadow and didn’t reproduce nicely sufficient to make out vital element. The unique is probably going both misplaced or was returned to his household.
Someday throughout highschool, Smith began his telescope enterprise. Gilligan was capable of finding a number of commercials that Smith positioned in Sky and Telescope journal within the early Nineteen Fifties. Over time, Smith amended his enterprise title, going from Ok.T. Smith to Ok.T. Smith & Co. to Ok.T. Smith Jr. & Co. Gilligan speculated with amusing that the “Jr.” was finally added as a result of Smith’s father was bored with receiving “unsolicited cellphone calls” meant for his entrepreneur son.
“SMITH PRESENTS A sensational new 4″ Newtonian telescope,” reads the heading for a March 1953 advert.
Smith enlisted within the Navy whereas nonetheless 17 in January 1954. From June to September that 12 months, he skilled to restore binoculars and telescopes, changing into an opticalman II. Gilligan stated this might have been a great job for Smith, who apparently had settled on a profession in optics.
“Studying between the traces, he by no means graduated from highschool,” stated Gilligan.
Smith was stationed for a time in Norfolk, Virginia. re-enlisted in 1956 and served aboard the united statesS. Amphion, a 500-foot restore ship. He had attained the rank of petty officer second class and was on board when it set sail for the Mediterranean to service ships of the U.S. Sixth Fleet.
What precisely went unsuitable after that’s one thing Gilligan continues to be making an attempt to determine.
Analysis has been sluggish going
Moreover his library analysis, which was with the assistance of Kevin Grey, an grownup providers and family tree librarian, Gilligan has made various Freedom of Info Act requests to each the Navy and the Nationwide Archives.
Legally, a person’s service information develop into public info 62 years after the individual dies, as Smith’s did in 2019.
However monitoring down the placement of information has been a little bit of a slog, with the pandemic slowing issues down much more.
One helpful doc outdoors of Smith’s personal information that Gilligan was in a position to purchase was the Amphion’s log for August, September and October 1957.
In an entry at 7:50 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 28, whereas the ship was off the coast of Greece, it was famous that Smith was absent when the crew was mustered.
The subsequent entry, at 8:05 a.m. states that “Smith, Ok.T. Jr…was discovered lifeless in compartment C—603—A apparently on account of self inflicted hanging.”
A board of investigation was instantly appointed, however Gilligan stated he has not been capable of finding any further particulars of that investigation. If the date of dying on Smith’s headstone is correct, it was apparently decided he had died someday earlier than midnight.
And if Smith did take his personal life, the primary query stays unanswered: Why?
The obituary is barely 5 quick paragraphs.
“A telegram was obtained Saturday by Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Smith Sr., 128 Wall St., Ravenna, from the U.S. Navy Division, Washington, D.C., notifying them of the dying of their son, Kenneth Jr…Particulars pertaining to his dying haven’t been realized by the household,” the obituary states.
A search of Portage County property information didn’t provide you with any outcomes for the deal with within the obituary.
Gilligan stated providers and burial have been on Oct. 9.
A ‘poignant’ discovery
Each grave in Arlington Nationwide cemetery has a narrative, stated Gilligan, and he’s within the place to inform one among them. So he continues his analysis of Smith’s life as he can. He stated he would love to seek out somebody who knew Smith, a member of the family or maybe a buddy, however up to now he has been unsuccessful.
Gilligan studied physics at Ohio State College in early Nineteen Sixties and thought of a profession as an optical engineer, designing lenses, however determined he loved laptop programming extra. He labored for an aerospace engineering agency in Princeton, New Jersey, authored various technical papers, and labored in California earlier than retiring early in 1992.
Gilligan says that when he seems again at his personal experiences, he thinks of Smith.
“In some sense, I had the life that might have been Ken’s,” he stated, noting that the Russians launched Sputnik I lower than per week after Smith’s dying, an occasion that spurred the United State’s personal push into house.
“He missed Sputnik I and the launch of the house age,” stated Gilligan.
Among the many paperwork Gilligan acquired from Smith’s mother and father is a rendering of a non-existent astonomical observatory. The drawing features a signal that claims “Smith Observatory.”
“It struck me as fairly poignant as a result of that was clearly a dream he had for himself and it clearly by no means got here to move,” Gilligan stated.
Reporter Jeff Saunders will be reached at jsaunders@recordpub.com.
