Mary Belle Schmick was born in Tazewell County on January 4, 1879, in Spring Lake Township, near Manitoo to Issac and Rhonda Schmick. Her father attempted to be a pioneer in Kansas, but it failed because of the great blizzard.
November 1885-March 1886, a blizzard wiped out all of Kansas. It was so severe that at their Montgomery County, Kansas home, her parents had to burn their possessions to keep warm- tables, chairs, beds, and so on. When the blizzard stopped, the snow didn’t melt until May and the grass didn’t come back until July. That July, her family returned to the homestead in Spring Lake, Illinois and there, her father died when she was 12 years old.
Mary Belle’s first husband is from nearby McLean, Illinois. For some reason, Mary and Birdie Snook travelled from Illinois to Butler County, Missouri to get married on November 24, 1897, then the newlyweds returned to Spring Lake, Tazewell County, Illinois where their first child arrived August 20, 1898. Her husband worked as a clammer on the nearby rivers. Two years later, Gladys Snook was born , then a son Leo in 1901, then Orin in 1904 and Iona Birdie in 1906.
Mary divorced Birdie and took the children with her to Poplar Bluff, Missouri and married George Nichols. Shortly after her marriage, her eight year old son Leo died and she buried her son in Butler County, Missouri. She divorced George Nichols shortly after Leo’s death, but a cousin said George died that same year from pneumonia also. I haven’t been able to verify this.
In 1911, she married again to Harvey Hawkins, but ten years later, he kicked her out and married her youngest daughter Birdie when she just turned 14. Mary Belle moved to Arkansas after this happened.
December 1926, Mary Belle married Dennis James at 47 years old. When her daughter Birdie died at just 18, she raised her grandchildren. The children of her ex-husband and her own daughter. Her grandchildren referred to them fondly as grandpa James and grandma James, so they must have not kept in touch with their biological grandfather Birdie Snook.
Mary Belle Smick died as Mary Belle James on February 1, 1951.
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