Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 5.djvu/222

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VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

A Democrat in politics, Mr. Smithey has since 1909 served in the town council and is rated one of the earnest progressive men of that body. He is a member of the Metho- dist Episcopal church, Lawrenceville Lodge, No. 59, Free and Accepted Masons, and of Emporia Chapter, Royal Arch Masons.

Mr. Smithey married, October 3, 1906, \'irginia Hendrick Bracey, born in Meck- lenburg county, Virginia, in August, 1879, daughter of Cornelius and Alice (Boyd) Bracey.

Thomas S. Southgate. To vifin success in any given field of human endeavor requires, it is believed, special preparation and special equipment. The professional man only dares to enter his field after years of study bear- ing on the profession he is to follow ; the mechanic must spend long years in special preparation for the trade he is to pursue ; and he who would lead men to conflict on sea or land must have special education for the branch of service he aspires to lead. In the business world our great merchants are often descendants of merchants or have had a training fitting them for their particular place in the commercial or financial world. When success comes to such men the ex- planation is easy, special preparation for special work produced the expected result. And yet these general results of cause and effect do not always follow, as the history of Mr. Thomas S. Southgate will plainly show.

Raised at sea from four to eleven years of age. without home or educational advan- tages, with but a part of two years of pri- mary school education he went to work for a meagre wage before thirteen. Suddenly the inevitable realization came with force, \iz., that without education the future course must be downward, rather than up. Study work at home was nightly begun without assistance. When the plodding be- came difficult and irksome, the second reali- zation came with equal emphasis to the first, viz., that difficulties and deprivations were but stepping-stones to genius and success. \\'ith that conviction made a principle of life, it was comparatively easy for him to believe that a young man could do most anything he wanted to do, provided he wanted to do it bad enough, and was at the same time willing to yield the price of sac- rifice therefor.

This simple belief in practical psychology

soon crystalized in applying this mental platform to every-day practical living, with the result that at twenty-one years of age a life's business calling was chosen, and with but a capital of less than one hundred dol- lars the test of these theories began. The result under all the circumstances has been rather remarkable. Mr. Southgate estab- lished his present business in 1892 and has never changed it in any manner up to this time, and in twenty-three years it has grown to large and influential proportions, being of its kind the largest business in the dis- tribution of food products in the Southern states. Its main office is in Norfolk, Vir- ginia, with five branch houses in well located Southern cities. The sales of this firm ag- gregate several million dollars annually.

This, no doubt, is creditable and in a measure exceptional, but in Mr. Southgate's own language is entirely secondary to the success which has come to him through the acquisition of a degree of education that is rare. He is gifted to a degree on the public platform, and his writings have for yeanf i)een sought for and highly regarded. Bit. few men in the South have given more freely of their time and effort in the interest of the public good ; and. as first vice-president of the Southern Commercial Congress, and first vice-president of the laymen's work of the Southern Methodist Church, he is widely known as a patriotic, public-spirited South- ern gentleman. In 1913 the South called upon him with others to spend three months in Europe to study rural banking. He be- came vice-president of the American Com- mission who made the study in twelve coun- tries of Europe, and whose report before Congress is now about to be enacted into the law of our country.

It is not fair to say alone that Mr. South- gate is of the type of the American self- made man, for he is rather the product of good blood, strong character and well bal- anced mentality. His ancestors came to Vir- ginia in 1780 from Middlesex, England; three brothers originally : John. Richard and Robert. John Southgate became a warm, personal friend of Bishop Meade, of Colonial fame, who states in his volume '"Old Churches" that "John Southgate settled in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1790. gaining promi- nence in educational, religious and temporal affairs." In fact, the whole line of ancestry down to his father, Thomas Muse South- gate, were educators.