PERSONAGE, PART 2 – CHRISTIAN LEE SCHWENSEN

I have known Kit for most of my life! I was friends with his brother Carl but was always aware of his older brother, Kit. He has returned to our hometown, as many of us have, to continue his life adventures with Warrensburg, Missouri as his base. Kit attended College Laboratory School and College High School (located at then Central Missouri State College) until his sophomore year when his Mother decided that Kit should have a couple of years of public schooling. After graduating from high school, Kit attended CMSC receiving his degree in Business Administration.

Kit then continued his academic work at the University of Missouri – Columbia where he did two years of post-graduate work in Forestry. Subsequently, he was with the United States Forestry Service responsible for fire containment and control in Montana Wyoming and Arizona. His recollections of that work include wonderful stories! He tell those stories with a smile as he remembers his time there.

However, when Kit received a call from his Uncle Samuel Smiser to come to work for him in California, he accepted the offer he couldn’t refuse! Kit moved to Orange County, Garden Grove, California and joined his Uncle in a very exciting and fulfilling industry, trucking, working in operations. The Smiser Freight Services Company had family owned freight terminals throughout California.

Kit married Carina Borgstorm, from Gothenburg, Sweden who was pursuing a Master’s Degree in Spanish at The University of California. They celebrated their marriage by taking an around-the world trip for their honeymoon. They both enjoyed trips to exotic and breathtaking places, learning so much about the world along the way.

After returning to California, Kit remained with Smiser Freight Services until the company was sold. Kit then got into the air freight trucking industry and retired in 2019. During that time he started his own company, A Transportation Solution. He continued with his company until he retired and closed the company. Kit enjoys his retirement and after almost fifty years in California, Kit returned home to Warrensburg in 2020 amid the pandemic and lives in his family home.

Kit has always been an avid hunter, having learned the sport from his Father when he was ten years old. He has hunted throughout the world and still shoots trap and skeet at every opportunity. His hunting adventures are too numerous to mention here but he will be happy to share those stories with you over a cocktail at a moment’s notice!

When asked what he would have done if he had not pursued the career he chose, he said he would have worked as a historian, expanding the field of history for others. His grandmother, Mary Miller Smiser instilled a love of reading to him as a child, nurturing Kit’s already love of learning. When I asked what he would now tell his twenty-one year old self, he said, get more education, travel more, study history by immersing in historical locales and get out and see the world.

Kit would love to travel extensively in Australia – a place he has never been. He would like to take adventurous trips into the Australian Outback, and experience the cities of Australia, including Sydney to explore the arts and the world acclaimed opera house. He would also like to return to Denmark, where there is still a family farm, and visit relatives and lifelong friends.

The most famous person Kit ever met in California was his friend Jonathan Winters! Kit ultimately gave Jonathan’s son a job driving trucks for Smiser Freight Service. Someone he would have like to have met is Courtney Frederick Selous, a famous hunter and pioneer from Rhodesia.

Kit is a wonderful conversationalist – he has an enormous amount of local historical knowledge, as his family was a well-established, landed family here in Warrensburg. The Johnson County Historical Society carries the name of his grandmother on the Smiser Alumni Building and the Mary Miller Smiser Historical Library and Pioneer Museum.

And so, my friend, thank you for sharing your life well lived here at despersonages.com. I look forward to many more conversations for a long time to come! …and he was an Eagle Scout!