Item Detail
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Kerr, Grace Levira Smith
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1894-1959
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MSS 326
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Biography
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Grace Levira Smith Kerr was born on November 17, 1894 to Samuel Harrison Bailey Smith and Julia Winter in Salt Lake City, Utah. At age six, she attended Hamilton School where she eventually graduated from eighth grade. She then attended Salt Lake High School and later spent a year on the Utah Agricultural College campus in Logan taking pre-college courses. On December 31, 1919, Grace married Robert Franklin Kerr, a cousin of her cousins, in the Salt Lake Temple. Together they moved to Storrs, Utah where Grace bore her first child: Robert (Bobbie) Franklin, Jr. In 1922 they moved to Provo where their second child, Marjorie, was born. In 1926 they moved to the Kerr homestead in Payson where Grace bore two more children: Belva and Grace Marie. In 1940 they returned to Provo. In 1942 Bobbie enlisted in the Navy, so in 1944 Grace and the rest of her family moved to Oakland, California so that Bobbie could visit them when he came to port. Shortly after Bobbie returned home, he was killed by a speeding car, so the family moved to Santa Barbara in 1948. Grace was widowed by Robert's death on May 2, 1949. Soon thereafter, Grace's own health declined, greatly limiting her activities. On February 24, 1959 Grace was rushed to the hospital with a sudden severe illness and died before any of her family could reach her.
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This ten-page typewritten biography of Grace Levira Smith Kerr was written by Ruby Kate Smith for the family books of remembrance in 1960 and is found in the bound book entitled 'Family Biographies' (Box 6, Folder 1).
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1899-1975