The “Aunts & Uncles” series of biographical sketches are Artificial Intelligence (AI) compiled narratives of selected individuals from my Genealogical database. The selected AI will used the RootsMagic Individual Summary from my Genealogical Software, Roots Magic. All genealogical data is my research material acquired over the past 46 years of research. Today's Biography of Lucy Gilham (Page) Smith (1840-1887) was compiled with the assistance of Claude Sonnett 4 and is entitled:
Lucy Gilham Page Smith
circa 1840 – circa 1882–1887
Stanly County, North Carolina
Introduction
Lucy Gilham Page Smith lived a quiet but resilient life in the red-clay hills of Stanly County, North Carolina. Born around 1840, she grew up in a close-knit farming community, married young on the eve of the Civil War, and then watched her husband march away — never to return home. For the next two decades, she raised her five surviving children largely on her own, drawing on the support of her father Sion Page and the tight bonds of the Furr community. Her story is one that was lived by thousands of Southern women during one of the most turbulent eras in American history, and it is worth knowing and remembering.
Family Background — The Page Family
Lucy was the daughter of Sion Page (born 1807) and Nancy Page (born about 1805), both natives of North Carolina. Sion was a farmer who worked the land in the Furr community of Stanly County, an area of small tobacco and grain farms nestled among the rolling Piedmont hills. The 1850 Census found the Page household bustling with nine children: Allen M. (age 21), Sarah E. (14), Rosa A. (12), Lucy G. (11), Mary F. (8), Uriah S. D. (7), Margaret A. (5), and little Jno F., age 3. Lucy, listed as 'Lucy G. Page,' was eleven years old that year — old enough to help with the younger ones and share in the daily rhythms of farm life.
The 1850s were a time of growing tension across the South, but in the Furr community, life centered on planting seasons, church gatherings, and family. The Pages were not wealthy planters — Sion was a working farmer, and Lucy grew up understanding hard work and the deep value of land and family. By 1860, Lucy, now about eighteen or nineteen, still lived at home with her parents and several siblings, listed in the Albemarle post office district of Stanly County.
Sion Page would live to the age of about eighty, dying in 1887. Nancy Page died around 1880. Their long lives gave Lucy's children — their grandchildren — an anchor of stability during the hardest years after the war.
Marriage to Evan (Evin) Smith — March 8, 1861
On March 8, 1861, Lucy Page married Evan Smith — known in family records and letters as 'Evin' — in Albemarle, Stanly County. She was around twenty years old; he was about twenty-eight. Evin was the son of Joseph Smith (1800–1872) and Mary Gilbert Smith (1800–1863), and had grown up just down the road from the Page family farm in what was called 'Smith's District.' After marrying, Evin bought land adjoining Lucy's father Sion Page, and the young couple began building a life together.
Their timing could not have been more bittersweet. They married in March of 1861 — just one month before Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter, launching the Civil War. The world they had planned to build together was about to be torn apart.
The War Years — Evin Goes to War, 1861–1865
Evin Smith enlisted as a Private in Company K of the 28th North Carolina Infantry on September 7, 1861 — just six months after their wedding. He left behind a pregnant Lucy, who would give birth to their first son, John Franklin Smith, on November 25, 1861.
Evin wrote faithfully to Lucy when he could. His letters, preserved by the family, give us a vivid picture of what both of them were enduring. From Wilmington on January 12, 1862, he wrote:
"Dear wife, I received your kind letter in due time and was glad to hear from you and hear that you was all well. I am well at this time for which I feel thankful to God... I want to come and see you all but I can't come yet nor can't tell at this time when I can come... I can't tell whether I will ever see you again and if I don't, I want you to do the best you can for yourself and the child... I want you to take my son down to his grandpa and let him see him... if we never meet again on earth I hope we will meet in heaven where there is no war."
Evin was captured at the Battle of Hanover Court House, Virginia, on May 27, 1862. He was described in military records as 5 feet 6 inches tall, with black hair, dark eyes, and a sallow complexion. He was confined at Fort Monroe, Virginia, and then Fort Columbus in New York Harbor before being paroled and exchanged at Aiken's Landing on August 5, 1862.
That exchange brought Evin home briefly — his only visit after the war began. He finally met his infant son John Franklin, and spent precious time with Lucy. But he returned to duty before January 1, 1863, leaving Lucy pregnant once again. Their second son, James Evan Smith, was born May 20, 1864 — a child his father would never see.
Evin wrote again in March 1863 from Camp Gregg near Fredericksburg, Virginia, describing sparse rations — less than a pound of flour a day, a quarter pound of bacon — and asking Lucy to send food if she could manage it. He worried about the money he'd sent her, fretted over shirts left with a neighbor, and longed to come home.
On May 12, 1864, during the savage fighting at Spotsylvania Court House — part of Grant's Overland Campaign — Evin was captured a second time. He was sent first to Point Lookout, Maryland, and then transferred to the Elmira prison camp in upstate New York in August 1864. Elmira — grimly nicknamed 'Hellmira' — was notoriously overcrowded, exposed to brutal winters, and plagued by disease. Evin Smith died there on April 2, 1865, just one week before Lee's surrender at Appomattox, from chronic diarrhea. He was buried at Woodlawn National Cemetery in Elmira, New York (Plot: CSA 2579). He was around thirty-two years old. Lucy was a widow at approximately twenty-five, with two small boys under four years old.
Life After the War — Widowhood and Rebuilding, 1865–1880
The years after the Civil War were desperately hard for Southern families, and Lucy's situation was no exception. North Carolina had been ravaged by the conflict — farms were neglected, the economy was shattered, and thousands of women like Lucy faced the future without their husbands. The period of Reconstruction brought political upheaval and economic uncertainty to the entire region.
Lucy leaned heavily on her family. The 1870 Census found her living in the household of her father, Sion Page, in the Furr community of Stanly County. She was listed as 'Lucy Smith, age 30,' with her two sons John (age 8) and James (age 6) alongside her. Her mother Nancy, her sisters Mary and Jane, and her aging father Sion all shared that home. It was a household of women and children, piecing together a life in the aftermath of war.
In 1867, Evin Smith's estate was probated in Stanly County — a legal process Lucy likely had to navigate as his widow and the mother of his heirs. The estate process formally wound down the affairs of a man who had been gone from home since 1861.
Remarkably, Lucy's family continued to grow after the war. She gave birth to a daughter, Catherine Smith, on March 23, 1872 (in Bladen County, North Carolina), and then twins — a daughter named Nora Janie 'Jane' Smith and a son named Jackson Sion Smith — both born on June 20 and July 20, 1879 respectively, in Stanly County. The records do not document a second marriage for Lucy, and the circumstances of these births remain part of the family's private history.
By 1880, Lucy was head of her own household in Furrs, Stanly County. The census that year listed her as 'Lucy Smith, age 40,' with four children at home: John F. (18), James E. (16), Jane (4), and Jackson (3). She was managing a farm household on her own — a remarkable feat for any woman of that era.
In September 1884, a notice in the Stanly Observer announced the court-ordered sale of 140 acres of land known as the 'Page Place' to satisfy a debt owed to the First National Bank of Salisbury. This was almost certainly the land that Evin had purchased next to Sion Page's farm — the family homestead that Evin and Lucy had dreamed of building their future on. Its loss at auction was a painful end to that chapter.
Death — Circa 1882–1887
Lucy Gilham Page Smith died sometime between February 1882 and February 1887 in Stanly County, North Carolina. The dates of her two sons' marriages help bracket this estimate — she was alive before John's marriage in February 1882, and gone before James married in February 1887. According to family oral history passed down through her grandchildren's generation, Lucy died of tuberculosis (TB), a disease that was tragically common in the late nineteenth century and particularly devastating to families already weakened by poverty and hardship. She was likely in her mid-forties. Her burial place is not currently known.
Lucy's Children
Lucy and Evin had two sons together, and Lucy had three more children after the war:
1. John Franklin Smith
Born November 25, 1861, in Stanly County. John was Evin's firstborn son — the infant his father cradled in letters from the front and longed to visit. He grew up under his mother's care and his grandfather Sion Page's roof. John married Serena A. Howell (1858–1910) on February 2, 1882 in Stanly County, and after her death married Pattie Reynolds (1872–1920). He died August 28, 1938, in Albemarle, Stanly County, and is buried there.
2. James Evan Smith
Born May 20, 1864, in Stanly County — the son his father never met. James was named after Evin and carried his father's memory through his name. He married Catharine Ann Huneycutt (1868–1940) on February 6, 1887, in Stanly County. He died February 9, 1934, in Albemarle, and was buried there on February 28, 1934.
3. Catherine Smith
Born March 23, 1872, in Bladen County, North Carolina. Catherine later married James Marshall Hales (1862–1939). She died October 30, 1950, in Wilson, Wilson County, North Carolina.
4. Nora Janie 'Jane' Smith
Born June 20, 1879, in Stanly County. Jane was a toddler when her mother died. She married the Reverend Rufus Franklin Huneycutt Sr. (1875–1945) on January 26, 1905. She died August 18, 1943, in Winston-Salem, Forsyth County, North Carolina, and was buried on August 20, 1943, at Albemarle City Cemetery, Albemarle.
5. Reverend Jackson Sion Smith
Born July 20, 1879, in Locust, Stanly County — possibly the twin of Nora Janie. Jackson was named for his grandfather Sion Page, a touching tribute. He became a minister and eventually made his way to the Pacific Northwest. He married Ellen Pearl Hastings (1882–1972) in 1913. He died March 3, 1938, in Butte Falls, Jackson County, Oregon — a long way from the Stanly County hills where he was born.
Historical Context — Living Through Turbulent Times
Lucy's life unfolded against a backdrop of extraordinary upheaval. She was born around 1840, just as North Carolina was entering a period of rapid change — cotton and tobacco were reshaping the Southern economy, tensions over slavery were rising nationally, and the communities of the Piedmont were being drawn deeper into a conflict that would tear the country apart.
The Civil War (1861–1865) struck Stanly County as it did everywhere in the South. Men enlisted in large numbers — the 28th North Carolina Infantry, the regiment Evin joined, suffered tremendous losses throughout the conflict, fighting in major engagements from Hanover Court House to the bloody trenches of Spotsylvania. Back home, women managed farms, raised children, and worried. Letters like Evin's — describing sparse rations, brutal winters, and uncertain futures — were the only lifeline connecting husbands to wives.
The period of Reconstruction after 1865 brought federal oversight of Southern states, political turbulence, and profound economic disruption. Thousands of widows like Lucy navigated a world fundamentally changed: no husband, diminished resources, and children to raise. The loss of the 'Page Place' at auction in 1884 reflected the financial pressures squeezing families across the South during these years.
Tuberculosis — the illness family tradition says claimed Lucy — was the leading cause of death in nineteenth-century America, often called 'consumption.' It spread easily in crowded or impoverished conditions and had no effective treatment until the twentieth century. Lucy was likely in her forties when she died, leaving behind children ranging from young adults to children as young as five or six years old.
Legacy and Family
Lucy Gilham Page Smith left behind five children who carried her legacy forward across the American South and beyond. Her sons John and James remained in Stanly County, raising families that became woven into the fabric of Albemarle. Her daughter Nora Jane married a minister; Catherine married James Marshall Hales and her son Jackson Sion — named for her father — became a reverend himself, carrying the family's faith across a continent to Oregon.
The family she anchored through impossible circumstances — a husband lost to war, land lost to debt, children left to raise alone — endured. The letters Evin wrote to her from the front, preserved through the generations by descendants like John Stevens, are a testament to the love at the heart of that family. When Evin wrote from Wilmington in January 1862, 'if we never meet again on earth I hope we will meet in heaven where there is no war,' he was writing to Lucy. She kept going. That was her story.
Lucy Gilham Page Smith is my 2nd Great GrandAunt.
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1. 1860 U. S. Census, Stanly County, North Carolina, population schedule, Stanly, North Carolina, Page:#38B (Stamped); Line:#29-34, Dwelling:#540, Family:#542, Household of Joseph SMITH; online database, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : online July 2016); citing National Archives Microfilm Publication M653, Roll 914.
2. Ancestry, "Civil War Service Records" database, Military Service Records (https://www.fold3.com/ : accessed 3 June 2019), entry for Evan Smith, Pvt.; 28th NC Company K; Confederate.
3. Ancestry,Military Service Records, database entry for EVAN SMITH, Pvt.; Co. K, 28th North Carolina Infantry; Confederate.
4. The "PAGE PLACE"; 140 acres of land obituary, The Stanly Observer, Albemarle, Stanly County, North Carolina, 18 September 1884, Page 3, column 6. SALE OF LAND KNOWN AS "PAGE PLACE".
5. Find A Grave, Inc., Find A Grave, database and digital images, (http://www.findagrave.com : accessed 3 December 2020); Memorial page for Pvt Evan Smith; (unk.-2 apr 1865); Find a Grave memorial # 66211002, Citing Pvt Evan Smith; Elmira, Chemung County, New York, USA; Plot: CSA 2579 [2549].
6. James Smith, META, FACEBOOK (: ONLINE 2018), EVAN SMITH, CIVIL WAR, 1865.
7. "North Carolina, Marriages Record, 1741-2011," database, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : viewed June 2019), Marriage; Evan Smith & Lucy Page, Marriage Date: 8 Mar 1861.
8. 1850 Census, Stanly County, North Carolina, population schedule, Furr, Stanly County, North Carolina, Page: 38A(stamped); Line 16, Dwelling 533, Family 535, Household of Sion PAGE; online database, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : viewed 21 July 2015); citing National Archives Microfilm Publication M432, Roll 645.
9. 1860 U. S. Census, Stanly County, North Carolina, Population Schedule, Albemarle P.O., Stanly County, North Carolina, Page: 8 (stamped); Line 18, Dwelling 92, Family 92, Household of Sion PAGE.
10. Stanly County, North Carolina, Estate Files, 1663-1979, Evan Smith; digital images, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, FamilySearch (http://www.familysearch.org: online July 2015); Evan Smith.
11. 1870 U S Census, Stanly County, North Carolina, population schedule, Furr, Stanly County, North Carolina, Page: 62B/264 (stamped); Line 29, Dwelling 72, Family 73, Household of Sion PAGE; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : viewed 21 July 2015); citing National Archive Microfilm M593, Roll 1160.
12. 1880 U. S. Census, Stanly County, North Carolina, population schedule, Furrs, Stanly, North Carolina, enumeration district (ED) 205, Page: 296D (stamped); Line 7, Dwelling 104, Family 107, Household of Lucy SMITH; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : Viewed 6 June 2014); citing National Archives Microfilm T9, Roll 0982.
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Compiled by Charles Purvis · Thomasville, NC · May 2026
