Born in Humphreys County, Tennessee, A. J. Smith married Bettie "B. G." Daniel in 1869 and the couple moved to Texas the following year. He worked as a teacher in Texas for over 10 years before devoting himself to land investment, while B. G. was involved with the United States Daughters of 1812 and served as historian of the American Legion Auxiliary. Of the Smiths' three children, only their son Floyd survived to adulthood. He attended the University of Texas at Austin (UT), where he served on the Sam Houston Senate of the Delta Theta Phi fraternity and met his future wife Jewell McAllister.
Floyd and Jewell had one child, Bettie Margaret Smith (1933-1979), who grew up on the family's McCulloch County farm near Lohn. She attended Ward Belmont Junior College in Nashville Tennessee, before entering her parents' alma mater in 1950. After receiving her bachelor of arts in English, Bettie taught school in cities across Texas from 1953 to 1960, before returning to the family farm. She returned to UT in 1964 to complete coursework for a major in mathematics. Following a year of work at Texas Instruments, she moved to Lohn in 1966 to manage the farm fulltime, earning an accounting degree from the University of Arizona in 1972 to aid her in this work. In her will, Bettie donated a large portion of her estate to UT's College of Engineering, where several facilities and faculty positions are now named in her honor.
From the guide to the Smith Family Papers 81-176; 87-60., 1893-1979, (Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin)
