LOCAL HISTORY: Who taught music to Dick Smith?
HONESDALE -The Biblical accounts of Jesus' birth are read and re-read and heard again and again every Christmas. So is the classic children's story “The Night Before Christmas.” Locally, we pause to re-tell this region's very own contribution to the Christmas Holiday tradition, the song Winter Wonderland, thought up by a bright, inspired young man, of Honesdale, Wayne County, Pa.
One of the angles we can take on the account is how this lyricist, Richard B. Smith (Dick Smith), in 1934, learned music, and would eventually write this famous song known the world over, its title becoming part of our everyday commentary on freshly fallen snow, and used in a blizzard of advertising slogans and jingles.
His musical abilities no doubt were natural born talent, but were nurtured through being taught. But who were his teachers?
Family influence
His own family certainly had an influence. Dick Smith was the youngest of four children of John H. and Eliza (Bruning) Smith, born September 29, 1901. His father was partner in a cut glass firm in Honesdale. A news item was found listing him as singing a solo at Grace Episcopal Church in 1902 (he was a vestryman there), Dick's older siblings were Marion (born in 1889), Warren (1894) and Marjorie (1900).
I knew Dick's sister Marjorie W. Smith very well. She was one of my mother's best friends, and lived only two doors apart on Church Street, overlooking Central Park. Marjorie was 95 when she died, on April 6, 1996. She had lived in the Smith homestead at 922 Church Street almost her entire life.
Marjorie played the piano, and took music lessons as a child in Honesdale (more, later). She even worked in a local piano store for a while. There was an upright piano in their home, which no doubt Dick would work the keys probably many times. She kept a copy of a Winter Wonderland song sheet on the piano. I saw it there many times.
I visited with Marjorie many, many times, chatting at her kitchen table near her cast iron coal-burning stove. I think of those days every time I walk by her house today.
How I now wish I had asked more questions about her family, although she would often share things.
Mable Broad
His obituary stated that he had a private music tutor in Honesdale, but didn't give a name.
That tutor may very well have been Miss Mabel Broad, of Honesdale.
A detailed story about her life was subject of an installment in this local history series, on February 11, 2020.
Miss Broad graduated from Honesdale High School in 1899 and led a long career as a music tutor and as lead organist at Grace Episcopal Church.
Many people still remember her and had her as a tutor.
Although the research hasn't yet proven she was his tutor, there are many reasons to think she was:
• Mable Broad's name is still remembered in association with Dick Smith.
• Dick and his family attended Grace Episcopal Church where she was organist for decades; Dick's father was part of the church leadership. A newspaper report about the Good Friday service in April 1902 (Dick was a baby at the time), listed both Mabel Smith and John Smith as having solo parts in the musical program.
• A news brief in The Citizen, published in Honesdale, dated May 29, 1912, tells of a recital given by 19 pupils of Miss Mabel Broad. One of them was Marjorie Smith. Dick's sister Marjorie was 11 at the time.
Mable Broad died at age 77, on May 29, 1958. She had left money in her will for her church to buy a new organ; the church still uses it, with a brass plate giving her name.
Honesdale schools
Dick Smith graduated from Honesdale High School in 1920. Certainly he would have received musical education there.
Researching who his school music teachers were is underway. Miss Amy Clark taught music in the graded school at least from 1909 through 1911, before moving to New Paltz, NY. Dick would have begun first grade in about 1908.
Pursues his passion
Smith, who was popular in high school, was known for his musical talent. He did some tutoring while still living in Honesdale, likely before he went to Penn State University. He led an orchestra there, before graduating in 1927.
His working life included managing theaters and writing advertising jingles, but his passion was to write songs. He entered the fast-paced, highly competitive field of song publishing in New York City, facing many rejections before he made it to the big time.
Inspiration
His sister Marjorie would say that Dick wrote the song after being inspired by the beauty of the freshly-fallen snow in Central Park, Honesdale, across the street from their home. Like for other children nearby (as I know from my days growing up at 914 Church), the park was essentially their “front yard.”
No doubt, like multitudes of children through the town’s history, Smith built his share of snowmen there.
His widow, Jean Connor Smith, said Dick was moved by the scene of children playing in the snow outside the windows of the West Mountain Sanitarium, Scranton, where Smith was sent to recover from tuberculosis.
Who were those children? It is possible some are still living today; they likely grew up near West Mountain Sanitarium, which was on North Sekol Avenue. Have they any notion what their childhood play may have started?
Memories of his childhood in Honesdale, as well as the kids he saw in the snow in Scranton, may have both given him the idea to write the song.
As the song declares, a snowman is proposed to be named Parson Brown, to marry the two lovers.
Smith penned the song in 1934, collaborating with song writer Felix Bernard, a year before Smith died from tuberculosis. Smith contracted the disease four years before, eventually claiming the gifted lyricist at a day before his 34th birthday, September 28, 1935. He had lived long enough to see Winter Wonderland released.
Winter Wonderland was his most well known of more than 10 songs that he wrote and were published.
The song was an immediate hit, being featured in its first year as the opening song at the Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall in 1934. It was used by Guy Lombardo with the Royal Canadians in the Ziegfield's Follies.
Song composer Felix Bernard is also best known for Winter Wonderland, and lived, 1897-1944, only a few years longer than Smith. Neither he nor Smith lived to see the grand success of their pinnacle song. It was not until 1946 that Perry Como and the Andrew Sisters both made hugely popular recordings of the song which catapulted it to the status of an enduring Christmas classic.
Pictures sought
Very few pictures of Dick Smith are known to exist. Published in the book I penned, The Heritage of Dick Smith's Winter Wonderland and published by the Wayne County Historical Society in 2019, are two pictures of the lyricist: The well-know side profile of Smith as an adult at the piano, and his Honesdale High School picture which Smith's classmate, the late Margaret Morrison shared with me over 25 years ago.
I recall Marjorie having one of her brother Dick, standing outside, full length. I wish I had asked her if I could make a copy. Penn State University also has several of him in his yearbooks; attempts have been made to obtain permission to use them.
No other photos of Dick Smith taken during his short-lived songwriting career have surfaced. They had no children together.
Regrettably, no image of his wife has been located.
In addition to looking for more pictures, more information about Dick Smith's descendants is sought.
Dick Smith’s widow, Jean Connor Smith Trahan (she later remarried), died January 6, 1987 in Scranton following an illness. Her obituary stated that she was survived by her son William R. Hughes, born before she married Smith. He was living in Holland, Bucks County, Pa. at the time; four grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren, nieces and nephews.
Further information on Mr. Hughes or his descendants have not been confirmed. A man by the same name, was found, that died at the age of 77 in December, 2002 in Ocala, FL. He was a native of Scranton, and had moved from Holland, Pa. to Ocala in 1991. He was survived by his wife and four sons, eight grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
Although I have their names and where they were living in 1991, they are not being published without their consent, and because of the possibility they are not linked to the songwriter Dick Smith after all. Attempts to located them have so far not succeeded.
If anyone has pictures of Dick Smith or his relatives, or further information about his life story and his song Winter Wonderland, please contact: Peter Becker at pbecker@tricountyindependent.com or call 570-253-3055 Ext. 315 and leave a message.
The lyrics:
Winter Wonderland (1934) composed by Felix Bernard/ lyrics by Dick Smith)
Sleigh bells ring
Are you listening
In the lane
Snow is glistening
A beautiful sight
We’re happy tonight
Walking in a winter wonderland
Gone away is the bluebird
Here to stay is a new bird
He sings a love song
As we go along
Walking in a winter wonderland
In the meadow we can build a snowman
Then pretend he is Parson Brown
He’ll say: Are you married?
We’ll say: No man
But you can do the job
When you’re in town
Later on
We’ll conspire
As we dream by the fire
To face unafraid
The plans that we’ve made
Walking in a winter wonderland
Winter wonderland
In the meadow we can build a snowman
And pretend that he’s a circus clown
We’ll have lots of fun with mister snowman
Until the other kiddies knock him down
When it snows
Ain’t it thrilling
Though your nose gets a chilling
We’ll frolic and play
The Eskimo way
Walking in a winter wonderland
Yeah we’re walking in a winter
Yeah we’re walking in a winter
We’re walking in a winter wonderland
Wonderland
Winter wonderland!
This article originally appeared on Tri-County Independent: Winter Wonderland written by Dick Smith Honesdale Mabel Broad
