Noel Smith, the Tribune’s founding editor, was born 108 years ago in Greenvale, Tennessee, in Wilson County on August 7, 1900. His Tribune editorials abound with memories and professions of love for his native state. Once he wrote of Tennessee, “…whose child I am fortunate enough to be, in whose warm earthly bosom I hope to sleep my last earthly sleep.” Days after the mortal Smith died on January 12, 1974, in Springfield, Missouri, that hope became a reality as they lowered his earthly remains into a grave at Mount Olive Cemetery in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Smith was quite taken with Knoxville. He writes, “Knoxville, surrounded by the great mountains, with its lakes and river and moonlight nights, is an alluring place. I never tire of going there.” And life handed him yet another reason to love Knoxville when the widower Smith met his wife-to-be Willadean Bowerman during the course of a revival meeting where Miss Bowerman was the pianist.

My wife and I vacationed in the East in June, and I decided I would take a drive through the mountains and visit Mr. Smith’s resting place on my way home. Mt. Olive Baptist Church and the adjoining cemetery are just a little off the Maryville Pike south of Knoxville. There, on a small knoll, with a treed area taking the city out of the line of sight, you will find a small cemetery with an iron gateway. Two small lanes into the cemetery are separated by a grass median. Take the right-hand lane, stopping about two-thirds of the way toward a large monument in the center. Walk to your right a few steps, and there you will find the gravesites for Noel and Willadean Smith, marked by two very plain footstones.

Unfamiliar with the territory at the time, my own search took in a great deal more of the cemetery, and a couple of markers denoting other departed Smith families led me astray briefly. I received some guidance from a man working on the other side of the cemetery. Thinking he might be more familiar with Willadean’s name when I spoke it, I asked about her rather than Mr. Smith. He did recognize her, and he gave me general directions involving the large central monument. The going got easier after that, and I was looking down on the stones within just from the editor a few minutes.

I took a few photos, and thought about what I (and indeed what the Fellowship) owes to Mr. Smith personally and professionally. I quietly gave thanks simply, without any flourish. I pondered his passion for righteousness, dignity, clarity, and all things Southern. I thought about those lines he wrote, expressing his hope to take his “last earthly sleep” in his beloved Tennessee, perhaps in a place such as this on a peaceful hillside. In the silence I noted the June heat, the buzzing of the insects in the nearby trees, a light breeze, and I imagined what a poetic essay he could create if he were to look down on the scene.

It was a good trip for me to take.

You can make a virtual visit to the place if you like. Google Maps © has a Street View feature that will take you to the cemetery’s gates, but not actually inside. The approximate address is 2304 Berry Road in Knoxville.