Truth or Consequences - A Christmas to Remember, 1947
by Martin Grams
It was the evening of December 20, 1947. Radio’s popular quiz program, Truth or Consequences, recently concluded another Miss Hush Contest, Edwards tricked contestants into taking two live seals home for the night (for a $500 prize of Easter Seals) and following a steady stream of DUZ commercials, Ralph Edwards delivered a holiday message that set the stage for the remaining 23 minutes of the program, with no commercial interruption. “Yes, it’s here again. For the past week you’ve been going over that gift list and maybe most of your purchases, but now on the threshold in the big week of the year, with wreaths in the window, holly on the door, with a jolly old man with the long white whiskers fattening up his reindeer for the big trip down… There’s no denying it, Christmas is here!” Edwards proclaimed. “And come Thursday morning, the bells will be ringing in all the churches, the kids will be laughing in all the houses and most everyone in their own way will be celebrating the reason for Christmas, the doctrine of peace on Earth, goodwill toward men. And… we got to thinking what an ironic thing it is that many of those who helped give peace the real meaning of the word, will be doing their celebrating from a bed or a wheelchair in a veteran’s hospital. And I wonder if each one of them can know and feel in their hearts just how grateful we are. So fellas in hospitals all over the country, this next consequence is for you.”
For the holiday season, Ralph Edwards and Ed Bailey, the producer of the program, established a special three-way set-up from the Long Beach Naval Hospital, in Long Beach, California, with a pick-up from several locations in Greeneville, Tennessee. Through this three-way set-up, a wounded veteran in the hospital, Hubert Clark Smith, known to his friends as H.C., found himself a contestant on the radio quiz program.
Born in 1927, Hubert was a native of Greeneville, Tennessee. When he was old enough to enter service during the War, he asked his parents for permission. They hesitated at first but later figured it would be better to volunteer than wait to be drafted. He joined the Navy where he spent three years working on a mine-sweeper and on the USS Monongahela, an auxiliary oiler. His service in the war ended pre-maturely when Hubert and a friend hitched a ride back to the Naval Base and the driver of the vehicle hit a utility truck that was working on the road. The force of the crash caused Hubert to hit his head on the roof of the automobile, breaking his neck. Before the automobile came to a standstill, Hubert’s body had been thrown from the car and found on the pavement. He was promptly discharged from service and returned to the United States as a patient of the Long Beach Naval Hospital. He was paralyzed from the neck down and doctors gave him one chance in a million that he would ever get better. While most of America was sitting by the fire with their family and enjoying good health, Hubert, at the age of 19, was among the many war casualties who were lying in a hospital bed. And he was a long way from home, family and friends from Greeneville.
Following the radio broadcast, Hubert Smith partially recouped from his injuries. Both surgery and physical therapy helped improve Hubert’s condition. He remained a quadriplegic for the remainder of his life and required assistance in daily activities. He needed a walker to get around until the day he died. Hubert did in fact marry Lyla Morrell, who remained his lifelong partner in marriage until her death from cancer in 1973. After he returned home in the late forties, Hubert attended Tusculum College and majored in mathematics and accounting, with hopes to become a CPA. His dream was never realized and he settled with managing a large farm in the Milburton community. Hubert overcame his handicap by using a special ball point pen to write, able to drive for a certain vehicle around the farm and ran his own business on the farm. “Despite his injuries, he was a great example of determination and positive attitude,” his sister-in-law, Mary Hartman, told the local newspaper, upon his death in 2006. Hubert C. Smith donated the majority of his money to the College for an endowed scholarship fund under his name. The scholarship continues – every year Mary Hartman receives numerous cards and notes from students.
“I knew I was to be on the program, but of course I didn’t realize to the extent I would be involved,” Hubert recalled in an interview with Chuck Schaden in 1988. “I had a previous call from one of Mr. Edwards’ associates that they would like for me to be a contestant on the program.”
His appearance on the radio program was the result of weeks of scheming and planning. The question he was supposed to answer correctly was “Why is a lazy husband like a Model T Ford?” Hubert was unable to answer correctly. The answer Edwards was looking for was “Because both are shiftless.” As a consequence, Hubert had to go along with the joke of pretending that he was wandering the streets of Greeneville on Christmas Eve. A number of engineers were stationed in Greeneville to broadcast live from the old George R. Lane Store, traffic sounds from Main Street, cut-ins from the high school Christmas party, and the ringing of the bells of Asbury Church. Hubert was able to exchange brief conversation with friends providing warm wishes.
Among his high school friends was Robert Parks, who reminded Hubert about the explosion they made in Mrs. Rhymer’s chemistry class. Hal Neas mentioned the big football games they used to play. Bill Gammon told how he and Hubert used to shoot firecrackers in the study hall. Mr. Gilland, the principal at Chuckey-Doak High School, told Hubert that, “We’re thinking of you all the time. The gang’s all here with a happy tear in their eyes for you. Hurry and get well and Merry Christmas.”
In Asbury Church, Ida Ripley was playing the organ and Rev. M. Guy Fleenor, spoke: “I have always thought about and preached about the joy of giving and how much more blessed it is to give than to receive. But tonight, I find genuine reason for joy in receiving… in receiving back into our midst one of our dearest friends, H.C. Smith. And whether by radio’s miracle or in our dreams, H.C. has never left our hearts… and prayers that went with you into war will bring you back to us again to share the peace you have helped make possible.”
By this time, Hubert Smith was trying to hold back the tears. With friends in Tennessee to back him, Hubert led them in singing a rendition of “Silent Night.” But the best was yet to come. He heard from his grandparents but he had yet to hear from his mother and father. As it turned out, they were in the Long Beach Naval Hospital, surprising the unsuspecting lad. Hubert was crying in a manner that he was almost speechless. This followed with a reunion with his girl, Lyla Morrell, two years his senior, who he would later marry. During the program she told Edwards and the radio listeners that she was an operator for the Inter-Mountain Telephone Company, “but the number that I want best is H.C.”
In arranging for Hubert’s reunion, Edwards was able to talk to Hubert’s mother into flying to California. She had never flown before and she was scared to death the entire time. She and her husband operated the Greeneville Bus Station for 50 years and on the program, Edwards explained how he arranged to have their employer hire substitute workers in order for Hubert’s parents to come to California.
Near the end of the program, Edwards addressed all the servicemen in all the military hospitals. “This is your moment, too, fellows,” he said, “because your parents and wives and children and sweethearts, in their minds and hearts, are thinking that they, too, are there with you. And that’s what your hometown is thinking right now, too, boys. Small towns. Big cities. That’s what they’re thinking, and don’t think it is just at Christmastime, either. It’s every day. It’s just that with all this talk about peace on Earth at Christmas time, we wanted you to know in this special way that the peace you fought to give us… we are going to fight to keep.”
The holiday offering prompted a number of letters from radio listeners – supposedly hundreds, if not thousands. One letter was addressed simply to “H.C.” – no state, no city, no hospital name, no nothing, just H.C. –sent from the post office in Greeneville and it went directly to Hubert’s hospital bed in Long Beach, California. No delay. No dead letter office. No “Return to Sender” stamped on it.
“I received a number of cards and letters and some of the people, local groups in California, visited me and gave me gifts,” Hubert later recalled. “Of course, a few months later, more or less as people went on with their daily activities, I didn’t hear anything more until a number of years later when a record was released to individual stations for reruns and again I started receiving a number of phone calls.” The reruns Hubert Smith recalled were probably as a result of a follow-up on The Ralph Edwards Show in the early fifties.
Fred Carney, the sound engineer who arranged for the connection at the Military Hospital that evening, later recalled that in all the years he worked on Truth or Consequences, “The one which touched me most deeply was that in which a paraplegic boy in Long Beach was reunited by a three-way remote with his hometown friends and in his hospital room with his mother, father and girlfriend. The boy even heard carols sung in the church where he had attended. There were tears in my eyes, in the engineers and in the eyes of the other patients.”
Hubert Smith led a long and fruitful life following the radio broadcast. Hubert was not permanently paralyzed from the neck down, courtesy of both surgery and physical therapy. He remained a quadriplegic for the remainder of his life and required assistance in daily activities. He needed a walker to get around until the day he died. He did in fact marry Lyla Morrell, who remained his lifelong partner in marriage until her death in 1973. After he returned home, he graduated from Tusculum College and owned and managed a large farm in the Milburton community. “Despite his injuries, he was a great example of determination and positive attitude,” his sister-in-law, Mary Hartman, told the local newspaper.
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