Mississippi's Greatest Bookman: Fred Cecil Smith (1953-2026) of Jackson's Choctaw Books Remembered

Fred Cecil Smith, 72, of Starkville, Mississippi, a nationally respected antiquarian bookseller and archivist, passed away after a long battle with cancer on February 28, 2026 at his home surrounded by his family.

The only son of Frank Ellis and Helen Ashley McPhaul Smith, he was born May 16, 1953 in Washington, D.C., named for his father's brother Fred who died in World War II at Guadalcanal. His father served six terms as a Congressman from Mississippi (1950-1962), later serving nine years on the Board of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). Fred and his twin sister Kathy grew up in a home filled with books, watching their brilliant father write books of significance as national political leaders circled around their parents. Their father was not a typical Congressman from Mississippi: he was a polymath, former newspaper editor, and author who was respected nationally for his liberal intellect.

For the first few years of his life, Fred lived in Washington, D.C., only a block away from the home of J. Edgar Hoover. Fred remembered with fondness living in the nation's capital during his father's service as Congressman. The family would later move to Alexandria, Virginia where Fred spent most of his childhood. His father was close to President John F. Kennedy from their early days in Congress, and after his defeat in 1962 for his moderate racial views and friendship with the President, Kennedy appointed Frank to the Board of the TVA, a full-time position, which resulted in the family's move to Knoxville, Tennessee.

Although Fred grew up in Knoxville, his family maintained close connections and strong identity to Mississippi and the Mississippi Delta. Fred attended Millsaps College in Jackson, where he graduated in 1976 with a degree in History. Always interested in politics, Fred, while a student at Millsaps, worked for the legendary Bill Minor, then the Mississippi Capitol Correspondent for the New Orleans Times-Picayune. He also attended the opening day of the Watergate Hearings with his best friend, sitting on the front row, next to reporters from Time and the New York Times.

He married Mary Frances Thurman on June 5, 1976 at St. Richard's Church in Jackson. Although he began his life as a Methodist, after his marriage he converted to Catholicism, which remained his spiritual home the rest of his life. He loved Jackson's Belhaven community and long resided with Mary and his family in a beautiful home on Saint Ann Street, where they reared their three children and created wonderful, long-lasting memories.

As his father approached political retirement in February 1982 from Governor William Winter's executive staff, Fred joined him to establish Choctaw Traders, commonly called Choctaw Books, located originally near the historic depot in Ridgeland's Old Town Square. His store's name had historical overtones, with the senior Smith choosing the name "traders" with intent, a reference to the old Indian traders along the Natchez Trace, who "traded" in anything of value. The senior Smith had used the name earlier to "trade" stamps, and Fred kept the name also to use the leftover stationery his father had. However, early on Fred changed the name to "Choctaw Books," which is the name most of his customers remember. Fred thought the name change was good for business due to the confusion that the store "traded" books rather than sold them.

His father, a life-long bibliophile, had for many years desired to open a bookstore, and with his son, gathered together many of the excess books from his own expansive library to stock the store. Over 36 years under Fred's leadership, Choctaw Books became one of the nation's most important antiquarian bookstores and was regarded as a Southern literary treasure. Prior to the opening of the store, used and rare books could only be purchased at flea markets, gun shows, and estate auctions. Choctaw Books became the mecca, a "cozy oasis" as Sid Salter called it, for bibliophiles in Mississippi. The store rarely advertised, with promotion mainly by word-of-mouth of devoted customers.

Among the many books, stamps, documents, and maps at Choctaw Traders originally were antiques from Frank's sister Sadie's Vicksburg antique store. In its heyday, one coming into Choctaw Traders would find Fred behind the counter, in front of a countertop sign reading "We buy books about Mississippi," and his father Frank rocking in a chair along his side. Frank's engagement with books was not only at his store, but via insightful essays on books and authors for the Clarion-Ledger and the Journal of Mississippi History.

Soon after it opened, the famous writer Eudora Welty, along with her friend Patti Carr Black and the local Catholic Bishop, came by the store for a visit. Of course, Eudora didn't need any more books — she had them in piles at her house — but she was taken with an antique breakfront cabinet in the store and purchased it. Eudora wrote a check for $700 for the breakfront, which had belonged to his Aunt Sadie. Fred delivered the breakfront to Eudora's house, with the assistance of his wife Mary and his small son Frank, who was supervised by Eudora as his parents placed the cabinet on the right side of the dining room, where it remained the rest of her life. The treasured breakfront was inherited by her niece after her death, and the Department of Archives and History created an exact replica to replace it in Eudora's dining room.

Soon after the store opened, a large group of physicians from Baptist Hospital came to visit together one afternoon. They admiringly walked around and explored the contents of the store but made no purchases. Fred's father Frank, in his rocking chair, croaked at them in his elegant dry voice, "This isn't a library," shaming them for buying no books!

In early 1984, Choctaw Books moved to 406 Manship Street in Jackson, near downtown, at the corner of Manship and North West Streets, just west of the Baptist Hospital, one block north of the historic Manship House. This was a larger site and once the home of a dental office. Most of his customers were from Northeast Jackson, and he felt the move to Jackson would better connect him to his customers. After moving there, he remembered his business doubled almost immediately.

Choctaw Books, eventually expanding to 110,000 volumes and open six days a week, specialized in used, rare, and out-of-print books by Mississippi authors or Southern subjects. The bookstore was recognized as the state's best source of books, maps, Civil War, Mississippiana, historical documents, prints, postcards, and photographs capturing the state's and the South's entire history.

In 1983, Fred told a Clarion-Ledger reporter that the bookstore focused on "Southern literary treasures," defined by him as "a book written in the South, about the South or by a Southerner." Also, the books on his shelves must meet three criteria: be "either rare, out-of-print or used." Occasionally he'd include some new books on his shelves, usually signed or limited press editions by Southern writers. He would also perform book searches to find specific rare books for customers. He loved the smell and feel of the old books that surrounded him, and he often disappeared among the many book rows in search of a volume. He praised the bookstore experience that bred customer loyalty. The store would also host author book signings.

To maintain his extensive collection of Mississippi and Southern treasures, he cultivated relationships with other book dealers across the country, from Maine to California. He also each week mined AB Bookman's Weekly, a weekly national book trade publication, which allowed him to purchase some of the best out-of-print books in North America.

Besides the Southern literary treasures, the store was known for its many special sections, including U.S. military history, the Mississippi River, Black History, the Old West, Native American history, business, law, medicine, and the media. A favorite place in the store was the "Mystery Room" which contained more than 3,000 hardback and 1,000 paperback mysteries, most at prices from 50 cents to $3. His store also maintained an extensive collection of cook-books, children's books, and Folio Society books — beautifully illustrated hardcover editions of classic literature. He was also highly sought as an appraiser of books and literary ephemera, and he appraised many of the most significant historical collections in Mississippi and the South.

He once told a Clarion-Ledger reporter of his love of being a bookseller: "It's kind of like searching for gold, a modern-day type of gold digging. You never know when you're going to find something that's really valuable."

Although he loved Mississippi books, he enjoyed collecting for his personal interest mysteries and early Texana. Often he'd decide to sell some books from his own collection, and he'd tell himself, "I just say, well, I've had the pleasure of having it for a while. Sometimes I ask for visiting rights."

By June 1991, the store moved to a much larger site at 926 North Street, just south of Fortification Street and east of North State Street. That was the final home of Choctaw Books, with Fred vowing that he'd never move that many books ever again. The site had once been a kindergarten, containing a large central room with multiple side rooms devoted to special types of literature.

Sid Salter recalled the "staggeringly wide range of people" who could be found "prowling the crowded, dusty rows" at Choctaw Books. "One might encounter a current congressman, a Jackson television anchor, doctors, lawyers, professors, journalists, ministers, political operatives and historians." He called Fred "the 'go-to' guy in the state for appraisals of rare books" and added: "Choctaw Books helped build a lot of quality home libraries and was a refuge for writers and researchers who could not locate rare or out-of-print books in libraries. If you needed a book, Fred Smith could usually get it. It never felt like shopping; it felt like visiting."

In 2001, Lori Herring called the bookstore "a cozy, crammed-full place" and an "oasis of old books — both previously-read and pristine." Fred told her that Choctaw Books had "allowed me to bring a lot of things back to Mississippi, where they need to be."

Fred operated the store full-time until fall 2013, although he would continue to sell books there until 2018. His used and rare book business did well until the rise of eBay, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and the internet domination of the market, which hugely reduced the business of brick and mortar used bookstores.

In 2017, Fred joined the Archives and Special Collections Division of Mitchell Memorial Library at Mississippi State University as the Coordinator of Rare Books. His expertise in Mississippiana and Rare Books was nationally respected, and he expanded the important holdings in the Library's Collections. He created many videos for Mississippi State Libraries entitled "Cultural Conversations" in which he interviewed important individuals associated with history and literature. He worked for Mississippi State until his death.

Fred is survived by the love of his life and wife of 50 years, Mary Thurman Smith; his son Frank Ellis Smith, II, of Rock Hill, South Carolina; daughter Anna Marie Baldwin (Ronnie), of Madison, Mississippi; son Luke McPhaul Smith (Sarah), of Tuscaloosa, Alabama; grandchildren Kyle Smith, Shelby Smith, Allyse Baldwin, Abigail Baldwin, and Sadie Baldwin; and his sister Kathy Miles (Vernon) of Hot Springs Village, Arkansas. He was predeceased by his parents and his beloved basset hound, Dudley.

Visitation was held at St. Richard of Chichester Catholic Church in Jackson, MS, on Monday March 16, 2026, from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. A Memorial Mass followed from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Celebrant was Father Joe Tonos, with Cantor Brent Corbello and Music Director Janette Sudderth. Inurnment followed at St. Richard Catholic Church Columbarium, with his burial very near and just across from the site of journalist Bill Minor's grave — Fred's first boss in employment.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations may be made to the Archives and Special Collections at Mitchell Memorial Library at Mississippi State University (395 Hardy Road, Mississippi State, MS 39762) or the charity of your choice.