Rodney "Gipsy" Smith - Family

Family

He was married on 17 December 1879 to Annie E. Pennock, one of his converts. It was from this marriage that Rodney and Annie had three children, two boys and one girl. Albany Rodney, the eldest, became a Christian later in life and eventually followed in his father's footsteps and became an evangelist in the United States. Albany was known as 'Gipsy Smith, Jr.' and served as an evangelist from 1911 to his death on August 24 1951. Albany's three children were Betty, John (Jack) Rodney, a lawyer, and George Wilbur, a Presbyterian pastor of three churches, one in Missouri, one in Stuttgart, Arkansas and one at Batesville, Mississippi. Rodney's youngest son, Alfred Hanley, became a Christian at a young age and became a Wesleyan pastor in England and served at 11 different pastorates during his 43 years in the ministry. Hanley died on February 11 1949 at the age of 67. Rhoda Zillah served with her father in his great South African campaign known as the "Mission of Peace". She eventually married a banker named James Lean and had two children, Rodney James Lean and Zillah Lean. Zillah Elizabeth Lean, Gipsy's granddaughter, worked with the late English author David Lazell, of East Leake, in his first biographical account of Gipsy Smith entitled, "Gipsy Smith, From the Forest I Came". Also, Reverend Charles Smith, of Van Buren, Arkansas wrote a brief biographical account of the Gipsy Smith family for the British Evangelical Magazine, The Flame (July-September 2006: Volume 72 No. 3).