Frederic E. Smith

Frederic Earl Smith, 75, died of lymphoma on March 6, 2017, at Sanford Health in Bismarck. Interment in the Mountain Cemetery, Mountain, N. Dak., will take place in late spring. Fred was born November 16, 1941, to Frederic and Catherine (Masson) Smith in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, where he was raised. Fred attended Grinnell College and the University of Iowa. He married Linda Stefanson in 1965 in Iowa City. After college, Fred worked as a publicist for Valley Music Hall in Salt Lake City, Utah, and in the baggage room for the Union Pacific Railroad in Cheyenne, Wyoming. In 1972, spurred by his interest in the fur trade and the Mandan Indians, he and his family moved to New Salem, North Dakota. Fred worked for Northern Improvement Company, wrote a conservative political column for The Bismarck Tribune and was hired as a reporter in 1985. Later, he was named opinion page editor. He and Linda moved to Bismarck in 1991. Fred retired from the Tribune in 2005. He made good use of his retirement years gardening, re-reading the classics, taking passenger rail trips around the country, and writing. Fred loved baseball and old-time country music. He published two novels. The Baggage Room chronicles the demise of the Railway Post Office and its effect upon the colorful characters he worked with for eight years on the UP in Cheyenne. Bull is a book about freedom. Bull is the tale of a Mandan Indian cruelly reincarnated as a black Angus bull. Fred also wrote a collection of short stories, Nickel Plate Road. Fred is survived by his wife of 52 years, Linda; his daughter, Samantha Smith, Bemidji, Minn.; his son and daughter-in-law, Thomas and Sarah Smith, Hudson, Wisc.; his daughter and son-in-law, Winifred and Brian Anderson, St. Cloud, Minn.; six grandchildren, Stefanson, Ellie and Lou Smith, and Lily, Will and Joe Anderson.