Whether it was antique sewing machines, Elvis impersonations or oldies music, Frank Marion Smith Jr. of Arlington was a fun-loving entrepreneur who enjoyed sharing his passions with others.
The colorful collector was well-known in Arlington as the curator/operator of Smith's Antique Sewing Machine Museum, located at 804 W. Abram St. from 1988 until 2000. He closed the museum when his landlord sold the historic bungalow.Mr. Smith died Sunday in Fort Worth from injuries he received in an auto accident Saturday in the Denton County town of North Lake. He was 68.Mr. Smith was remembered Wednesday during a candlelight vigil in the parking lot of the former sewing machine museum."Frank was an honest, good-hearted guy who would loan you his last dollar," said longtime friend Tommy Dabne of Plano. "He was what we call 'solid,' a military term."Mr. Smith was also remembered as a devoted, though unconventional father to his youngest child, Halaina Walsh, 24, of Arlington. He had four other children from two earlier marriages, including son Mark Smith and daughters Toie Levinrad and Carrie Smith. Another son, Frankie Smith died a month ago."I was so much younger than everybody else," Walsh said. "With everyone else he was a weekend father, but with me, he was an old-timer who had to relearn being a dad."Mr. Smith became a single father to Walsh, who was only 5 when her mother left.Natural showmanMr. Smith was born in Lake Village, Ark., on Dec. 6, 1942, to Frank and Helen Smith. He came to North Texas after serving in the Army, settling in Dallas, where he operated a sewing machine repair shop in Leonard's Department Store.Mr. Smith always did singing engagements as a side business and recorded and produced independent records. He saved money to start the museum in Arlington and had more than 300 machines by the time it opened in 1988.Mr. Smith's flair for entrepreneurial showmanship started back when he and Dabne were growing up in Lake Village."He lived on a dirt road, where he had nobody to play with," Dabne said. "He would get out there in the front yard and he'd be Superman. Farmers going by would honk, and next time he'd be dressed as a cowboy."Hundreds of North Texans also knew him for the full-time slate of music shows he did for senior centers and other venues in the years after the sewing machine museum closed in 2000.Mr. Smith, whose stage name was Frankie Lee Smith, sang numerous times in Arlington at the Johnnie High Country Music Revue, his daughter said, only a few blocks away from the Sewing Machine Museum."He was a singer his entire life and enjoyed singing at retirement centers and nursing homes all over the D-FW area, hundreds of places," Walsh said. "He did Elvis impersonations, country shows, gospel shows. That was his life."Mr. Smith knew how to do things in a big, big way.Walsh recalled helping her father build the World's Largest Sewing Machine, which became an icon along West Abram Street. It stood out front of the museum, and could actually sew.Mr. Smith's cremated remains will be taken to Arkansas for burial near his parents and a brother. Mr. Smith is also survived by two sisters, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.This report includes material from the Star-Telegram archivesShirley Jinkins, 817-390-7657Have more to add? News tip? Tell us
