This Week in Texas Methodist History July 19

Bishop Smith Replaces Deceased Bishop Adna Leonard on Important Commission, July 1943

Bishop A. Frank Smith was one of the most powerful bishops of the MECS and MC during the middle years of the twentieth century.  He was elected to the episcopacy in 1930 from the pulpit of First Methodist Church Houston, and although he was assigned to the Missouri and Oklahoma area conferences, he continued to live in Houston.  In 1934 he was assigned to the Houston area (Texas, West Texas, and Rio Grande Conferences) and lived in Houston until his death in 1962.  He spent his last months in Houston Methodist Hospital, an institution he had helped shape.  

He physically imposing and had a forceful personality.  He was elected at a fairly young age and soon achieved prominence on a denominational scale.  When Unification occurred in 1939, I would argue that Smith and his colleague Arthur Moore were the two most influential bishops to enter the new denomination from the MECS.   Moore and Smith were close friends having been in San Antonio at the same time, Moore at Travis Park and Smith at Laurel Heights.  Smith was the first president of the Council of Bishops of the Methodist Church. 

Part of the prominence was his service on numerous denominational boards, agencies, and commissions.  In addition to his supervision of annual conferences, he served on the Board of Trustees of SMU, Southwestern,  Scarritt, Oklahoma City University and Lon Morris College. 

Much of his travel was by rail rather than air, and travel to his denominational meetings took up much of his time.  His obligations increased in July 1943 when he was named to the Commission on Army and Navy Chaplains to replace the deceased Bishop Adna Leonard (1874-1943).

On May 3 Leonard had been killed in a plane crash in Iceland on his way to Europe to meet with military chaplains serving in the European Theater.  Also dying in the crash was Lt. Gen. Frank M. Andrews in whose honor Andrews Air Force Base was named. 

Bishop Leonard was elected in 1916 and had served the San Francisco and Pittsburgh Episcopal Areas, but in 1943 was assigned to the Washington, D. C. area---perfect for his service on the Commission on Army and Navy Chaplains since that group met monthly.

Smith was no stranger to the Naval Department.  In 1918 while serving University Methodist in Austin he responded to the call for volunteers to the chaplaincy.  He already had enough influential contacts that he traveled to Washington for an interview with Josephus Daniels, the Secretary of the Navy rather than the local recruiter.   That meeting resulted in a Lieutenant’s Commission for Smith.  He returned to Austin, informed his congregation that he would be leaving, made plans for his family to move to Dallas while he was in the service, and prepared to enter the U. S. Navy. 

Unfortunately the Influenza Epidemic hit Austin, and one of the victims was 9 –month old son Charles Allen Smith who died on October 20.  Smith mailed his commission back to Secretary Daniels—he had to stay with his family in their time of grief.

The monthly trips to Washington for the rest of World War II meant that Smith was away from Houston much of the time.  There was at least one silver lining to those absences.  Another prominent Methodist Houstonian was in Washington---Jesse H. Jones, Secretary of Commerce and a member of St. Paul’s Methodist Church in Houston.  Smith and Jones were old friends.  Smith used his monthly trips to Washington to keep Jones up to date on the needs of Texas Methodists.   Jones made substantial gifts to our schools and hospitals—maybe the time spent on those long train rides wasn’t wasted after all.