From NKAA, Notable Kentucky African Americans Database (African American Women Veterans in and from Kentucky)

Guy, Tommie D. Smith

(born: April 24, 1921 - died: December 29, 1969)

Subject

Women's Army Corps (WACs)

Migration West

Military and Veterans

World War II

U.S. Army

Military Branch

Women's Army Corps

Active Duty Entered

January 26, 1943

Active Duty Exit

1945

Notes

Tommie D. Smith was one of the three African American WACs who were beaten by the local police and charged with disorderly conduct for sitting in the white waiting area of the bus station in Elizabethtown, KY. The three WACs were with the 1550^th Service Command Unit, WAC Section II. The three women were eventually found not guilty of any charges. Read more about the beatings and the Army's response in the NKAA entry WACs Beaten in Elizabethtown, KY (link at the botton of this entry).

Smith was born in Lexington, the daughter of Carrie Mae Clayborne and Stanberry Smith. Her mother was married to Frank Harris when the family was enumerated in the 1930 U.S. Census. By 1939, Tommie was employed as a maid. She is listed in the 1939 and 1940 Lexington city directories.

According to her record in the National Archives, Access to Archival Databases, Tommie Smith enlisted in the Army in Cincinnati, OH when she was living in Lexington, KY in 1943. After her military service she was living in Lexington again: She is listed on p. 516 of the 1947 Lexington city directory. The name on her death certificate is Tommie S. Guy; she was married to Roosevelt Guy and lived in Temple, TX for 20 years; she died at the VA Hospital there in 1969, but is is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Lexington.

Sources: Texas Death Certificate #4299 35, State File #92456 in Ancestry; Polk's Lexington (Fayette County, KY.) City Directory, 1947, p. 516; Polk's Lexington (Fayette County, KY.) City Directory, 1939, p. 558; Polk's Lexington (Fayette County, KY.) City Directory, 1940, p. 586; Mrs. Carrie Mae Clayborne Sheckles in "News notes and deaths," The Lexington Leader, 3/1/1968, p. 17; Mrs. Tommie Guy in "Death," The Lexington Leader, 12/30/1969, p. 12; " Obituaries: Guy, Mrs. Tommie D. Smith," The Lexington Leader, 12/30/1969, p. 12; and "Deaths: Mrs. Tommie D. Guy," The Lexington Leader, 1/5/1970, p. 14.