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“I didn’t wish to let the cat out,” Mr. Smith advised The Tennessean newspaper in 2002. “I wished to maintain it within the bag longer.”
Marion Otis Smith was born on Sept. 24, 1942, in Fairburn, Ga., the one little one of Otis Smith, a farmer, and Bernice (Stephens) Smith, a homemaker. His dad and mom later divorced, and he was principally raised by his grandparents.
After receiving bachelor’s and grasp’s levels in historical past from West Georgia Faculty, he entered the Military and served two years in South Korea. He was discharged in 1969.
Again in Georgia, he spent a number of years working completely different jobs, the kind that paid little however requested little in return, permitting him to spend as a lot time as potential underground. Finally he cleaned up, a bit, and in 1974 he was employed as an assistant editor on the College of Tennessee, charged with making ready the 16 volumes of President Andrew Johnson’s papers for publication. He retired in 2000.
With Ms. Jones, he lastly purchased his first residence within the early 2000s, on a backcountry path north of Chattanooga known as Bone Cave Highway. He was married as soon as, however simply briefly. Ms. Jones is his solely quick survivor.
Caves have been his life, however exploring them was not his solely ardour. He was maybe the world’s main professional on the historical past of mining for saltpeter, a main ingredient in gunpowder, which within the nineteenth century was typically harvested from caves.
Within the 2010s he joined with Joseph Douglas, a historian at Volunteer State Group Faculty in Gallatin, Tenn., in a venture to doc the hundreds of signatures left by Accomplice and Union troopers in Mammoth Cave, in central Kentucky. Mr. Smith was notably taken with researching the lads themselves, and he in the end wrote about 80 miniature biographies.
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