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Smith was married to oe of Dad's cousins, remeber stay at his home, and his magic show at famliy reunions. Too me and American hero and one of the great Generation.

Hyrum "Smith" Shumway wanted to marry his college sweetheart and enroll in medical school. But first he and his Army rifle company had to help liberate France from the Germans in World War II.

On the way to Paris, 1st Lt. Shumway was hit by shrapnel in his legs, arms, chest and face. Fragments continued to work their way out of his body for the rest of his life. He set off scanners at airports.

He lost the right side of his chest and needed more than 100 stitches in his face alone.

He was left permanently blind.

But he recovered and went on to become a national leader in education of the blind and lived an independent, active lifestyle.

Mr. Shumway died Saturday (March 26, 2011) of renal failure at the home of a daughter in Cheyenne, Wyo., his son, Dr. Joseph Shumway of Richmond Heights, said Wednesday.

Mr. Shumway had lived with his son until about a week before his death at age 89.

While living here, he was knighted as a war hero by the French government and received the Legion of Honor.

He gave talks to St. Louis-area students about his experiences in the war and how he had finally resolved to live his life to the fullest.

He was aboard a ship bound for the United States in 1945, feeling sorry for himself, "until I realized I was surrounded by soldiers who no longer had arms or legs."

"That's when I decided that I could still walk and talk, I was in pretty good shape."

After three years of rehabilitation, he visited factories to demonstrate how the blind could perform various tasks. He later said it was often harder to convince the workers than the employer.

From 1955 until he retired in 1985, he was director of blind and deaf education for the state of Wyoming. He established schools, camps and centers for the blind and deaf. But his greater goal was integrating them into public schools with other students.

In 2004, a Post-Dispatch article said his innovations had put him in the national forefront. He met with Helen Keller and President Harry S Truman.

He led by example, learning to play the violin and harmonica, rappelling, skiing and rollerblading.

He was born in Salt Lake City. In 1948, he finally married his college sweetheart, but it wasn't easy.

It was over the objections of her father, later the assistant secretary of the Interior, who didn't think a blind man was good enough for his daughter, Mr. Shumway recalled.

He proposed anyway, telling Sarah Bagley: "If you'll sort the socks and read the mail, I can do the rest."

She died in 1992. The couple had eight children.

Mr. Shumway said he never forgot the terrible price the war exacted to achieve peace.

The night before he left England for the Normandy invasion, he recalled a minister telling the soldiers how lucky they were to be chosen to "take care of that viper Hitler."

The men all agreed.

"But after experiencing D-Day," Mr. Shumway said in later years, "I think that if Roosevelt and Hitler had been on Omaha Beach, they would have found a quicker way to end that war."

Mr. Shumway was one of the first blind bishops and patriarchs for the Mormon Church.

He will be buried Friday in Cheyenne.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/obituaries/article_9892b75c-49f9-545c-90bd-0b387d02835e.html
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