Monroe Smith, 99, a former slave who was born Aug. 15, 1848, on a farm near Bardstown, was a patient at St. Joseph’s Hospital, where he was admitted for treatment for a chest condition in August 1947. With Smith were Sister Agnes Sienna and nurse Beatrice Chumley. Smith, who was owned by a Hill family, grew up as a field laborer and remembered that he was hoeing corn when the news came that Lincoln had been elected president. Because the Hills were so kind to their slaves, many stayed on even after they were freed, Smith said. He left after four years and worked as an odd-job man around Bardstown until he was hired as a gardener by the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth. Smith said he never married because “whenever I should have been out courtin’, I was hiding stock and farm produce to keep them from the Rebel and Yankee armies.” Published in the Herald-Leader on Aug. 17, 1947. Herald-Leader Archive Photo