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→Background
Smoot was born into poverty in a log cabin in East Prairie in Mississippi County in southeastern [[Missouri]], to William Bernard "Bernie" Smoot (died 1924), a sharecropper, and the former Dora E. Allbright (born 1892).<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.ancestry.com/search/?name=Bernie+W._Smoot&event=_east+prairie-mississippi-missouri-usa_49370|title=William Bernard "Bernie" Smoot|publisher=Ancestry.com|accessdate=August 24, 2019}}</ref> As a six-year-old, Dan picked and hoed [[cotton]] and cultivated [[corn]] with a one-mule plow at the age of eight. He had a sister, Virginia Ruth, and a brother, Jewell Martin Smoot (1911-2003), who predeceased his brother by only ten days.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?viewrecord=1&r=an&db=FindAGraveUS&indiv=try&h=23442108|title=Jewell Smoot|publisher=Ancestry.com|accessdate=August 24, 2019}}</ref> Despite the lack of material resources, Bernie Smoot taught young Dan how to read the classics.
Smoot was born into poverty in a log cabin in East Prairie in Mississippi County in southeastern [[Missouri]], to William Bernard "Bernie" Smoot (died 1924), a sharecropper, and the former Dora E. Allbright (born 1892).<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.ancestry.com/search/?name=Bernie+W._Smoot&event=_east+prairie-mississippi-missouri-usa_49370|title=William Bernard "Bernie" Smoot|publisher=Ancestry.com|accessdate=August 24, 2019}}</ref> As a six-year-old, Dan picked and hoed [[cotton]] and cultivated [[corn]] with a one-mule plow at the age of eight. He had a sister, Virginia Ruth, and a brother, Jewell Martin Smoot (1911-2003), who predeceased his brother by only ten days.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?viewrecord=1&r=an&db=FindAGraveUS&indiv=try&h=23442108|title=Jewell Smoot|publisher=Ancestry.com|accessdate=August 24, 2019}}</ref> Despite the lack of material resources, Bernie Smoot taught young Dan how to read the classics.
When he was orphaned at eleven, Dan was sent to live with an uncle who forbade scholarly pursuits. After three years, he ran away from the uncle's home at the age of fourteen with a dime in his pocket but determined to make a life of his own. In 1933 or 1934, at the age of twenty, Smoot married Mabeth Bertha "Betty" Evans, his 16-year-old childhood sweetheart, who became the mother of his two sons, Bernard Evans Smoot (1943-2007), and Lawrence Edward "Larry" Smoot (born 1953), both of whom were born in [[Dallas]], [[Texas]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.ancestry.com/search/?name=Lawrence+Edward_Smoot&event=_dallas-dallas-texas-usa_76758|title=Lawrence Edward Smoot|publisher=Ancestry.com|accessdate=August 24, 2019}}</ref> Later divorced, he married his secretary, Virginia McKnight Erwin (1914-1996), known as "Gin" Smoot, who preceded him in death by some seven years. She is interred at Holly Tree Cemetery in Hawkins in Wood County, Texas,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=60541&h=160585414&tid=&pid=&usePUB=true&_phsrc=EOs329&_phstart=successSource|title=Virginia Smoot|publisher=Ancestry.com|accessdate=August 24, 2019}}</ref> but there is no indication whether Smoot is also buried at Holly Tree Cemetery.
When he was orphaned at eleven, Dan was sent to live with an uncle who forbade scholarly pursuits. After three years, he ran away from the uncle's home at the age of fourteen with a dime in his pocket but determined to make a life of his own. In 1933 or 1934, at the age of twenty, Smoot married Mabeth Bertha "Betty" Evans, his 16-year-old childhood sweetheart, who became the mother of his two sons, Bernard Evans Smoot (1943-2007), and Lawrence Edward "Larry" Smoot (born 1953), both of whom were born in [[Dallas]], [[Texas]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.ancestry.com/search/?name=Lawrence+Edward_Smoot&event=_dallas-dallas-texas-usa_76758|title=Lawrence Edward Smoot|publisher=Ancestry.com|accessdate=August 24, 2019}}</ref> Later divorced, he married his secretary, Virginia McKnight Erwin (1914-1996), known as "Gin" Smoot, who preceded him in death by some seven years. She is interred at Holly Tree Cemetery in Hawkins in Wood County, Texas,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=60541&h=160585414&tid=&pid=&usePUB=true&_phsrc=EOs329&_phstart=successSource|title=Virginia Smoot|publisher=Ancestry.com|accessdate=August 24, 2019}}</ref> but there is no indication whether Smoot is also buried at the same cemetery.
Relocated to Dallas, Smoot graduated from high school and attended [[Southern Methodist University]] in University Park near Dallas, and later [[Harvard University]] in [[Cambridge, Massachusetts|Cambridge]], [[Massachusetts]], from which he dropped out prior to receiving a [[PhD]] in American Civilization to enter the [[United States Army]] after the attack on [[Pearl Harbor]] by the empire of [[Japan]]. However, the Army rejected Smoot because of his flat feet.<ref name=newamericanmagazine>Book review, March 7, 1994, in ''The New American,'' ''People Along the Way: The Autobiography of Dan Smoot'' (Big Sandy, [[Texas]]: Tyler Press, 1993), ISBN:978-1884441493.</ref>
Relocated to Dallas, Smoot graduated from high school and attended [[Southern Methodist University]] in University Park near Dallas, and later [[Harvard University]] in [[Cambridge, Massachusetts|Cambridge]], [[Massachusetts]], from which he dropped out prior to receiving a [[PhD]] in American Civilization to enter the [[United States Army]] after the attack on [[Pearl Harbor]] by the empire of [[Japan]]. However, the Army rejected Smoot because of his flat feet.<ref name=newamericanmagazine>Book review, March 7, 1994, in ''The New American,'' ''People Along the Way: The Autobiography of Dan Smoot'' (Big Sandy, [[Texas]]: Tyler Press, 1993), ISBN:978-1884441493.</ref>