James Floyd Smith - Biography

Biography

He was born in Illinois on October 17, 1884, then his family moved to Union, Oregon. In 1907 he married Hilder Florentina Youngberg of Galesburg, Illinois. Their first son, Sylvester Smith, was killed at age 11 by a car in 1919, in Chicago. They had a second son, Prevost Vedrines Smith (1913–1991) aka Prevost Floyd Smith. In 1930 the family was living in Morrisville, Bucks County, Pennsylvania and Floyd was working as an engineer. Prevost and Floyd started the Smith Parachute Company at Gillespie Field in San Diego County, California which became the Prevost Smith Parachute Company.

Floyd died on April 18, 1956 in San Diego, California of cancer. He was buried in the Portal of Folded Wings Shrine to Aviation.

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